The Midnight Pen
by SnapTobiume10
Summary: It all begins when they start to disappear, continues on with the rain and the bodies. When cause and time of death can not be determined, they all think Maura is useless, that she couldn't possibly help solve the case. But in reality, she may be the only one that can... Based loosely on Persona 4, with new twists. Jane/Maura. Rating for language and chapter 16.
1. Chapter 1

_AN- Okay, I know. I understand what you may be thinking; Persona4 and Rizzoli and Isles? What the HELL? Trust me, I know. But I had this really, really whacked out dream, as is usual for me- ask around, and this kind of just ... happened. You know how it goes. Anyway, I'm working on a cover for this one, but I have to make it look like Maura drew it, so it'll take me a little bit to get that much detail. I'm also going to try and be consistent (which is a word I do not know the meaning of) with my updates (no idea what those are either, lol). This is also kind of another distraction before I get back to my PR fanfic (which I really do need to update) I might actually update this one...  
Right, I'm rambling. However, I'm trying to make this as book- like as possible, so this will probably be the only author not from me until the very end. Pssht, I know what you're thinking again. "Yea right, everyone says that, and there is always an AN on every chapter". But I'll try my best to be different :).  
Now here is my apology segment- I only just began watching R&I (like seriously, two weeks ago) but am seriously OBSESSED. And P4 is the only Persona I have gotten my hands on, though I played a small portion of both two and three. So I suppose I would *sigh* be considered a "noob" in gaming world. It disgusts me to even say that.  
However, I plan to take you all on the ride of your life, and considering I'll be going to Dorney in a few days for my B-day with my girlfriend, I will most definitely be hitting up some serious coasters. This will, hopefully, make that look like a children's ride. So buckle up, and hope _your_ dreams don't end up like mine...  
Disclaimer- If I owned P4, Atlus, or R&I, I would be in writers and gamers heaven._

* * *

Why was she awake? The room was dark, nothing that made it extremely strange, nothing that positively screamed out of the ordinary. Especially not for one in the morning. And she was comfortable. So why, at such an ungodly hour of the morning, had her body chosen to wake? And more importantly, why did she feel as if something was watching her from the deepest shadow of her consciousness?  
Lights flashed on, all around her. She sat up with a jolt, nearly falling sideways from the rapid movement. She knew, beyond even the slightest shadow of a doubt, that not many hours prior, she had fallen asleep in her well- endowed room, in her own soft bed, in a house she titled as her own. She was sure as Hell not home. And the place she was at... It was nearly indescribable. The walls were white, at first glance, yet when analyzed further they seemed to glisten. Mirrors. Mirrors surrounded her. They flashed with an ethereal glow, as something seemed to separate from every direction, branching outwards at the same time that it seemed to shrink inwards in a creeping motion. It was a sort of mist that was, at the same time not a mist, and had no describable color. The... Thing rose, growing, shrinking, everything was the same, yet nothing had meaning. And it reflected, ten... a hundred... a million times over, from every direction, no matter where one turned, always there, always watching. She tried to move her hands, to cover her face and hide from the sight, yet when she tried to move, she couldn't.  
She was bound, arms folded against her chest in a cross, as if she had been put into some asylum. She turned, trying to find a way out, and ran. Mirrors bracketed her inwards, forming where there seemed to be open space only moments before. She turned, sprinting in another direction, the thousandth one, only to smack face- first into unyielding material. She cried out, and the sound echoed- not one person crying for help, but hundreds, thousands, an unimaginable number. She tried to cover her ears, but couldn't, shrinking down as her shoulders shook. The misty, fluid form advanced.  
No, she sure as hell was not home.

* * *

The incessant buzzing of the phone was driving her absolutely batty. Which may not have been a real, solid English term, yet it did have a figurative meaning, if the doctor was learning correctly from her partner in just as figurative crime. The buzzing stopped, and the small, rectangular, candy bar- shaped device lied still. Maura let her sigh brush into the air as she leaned her chin on one hand, elbow resting on her island counter. Jane was insistent about making her pancakes, regardless of the time of day, one in the afternoon, or the fact that she really couldn't cook to save both her figurative and literal ass. The doctor usually did the cooking for both of them, after the pasta incident. Maura had made the mistake of thinking that her best friend and brilliant detective could not possibly do something to ruin pasta- all you do is boil water and put noodles in it. Yet, like all the mistake Maura made on those rare occasions, she had not made it a second time. Especially not after paying for a new kitchen because a very _mysterious _fire seemed to have destroyed the cabinets of her old one.

The stove top clicked off, and Jane actually placed the dirty dishes inside the dishwasher, making the doctor smirk appreciatively. As she learned her figurative speech, the detective showed promise of learning to be relatively tidy. As far as a relative concept could be stretched, at least.

Jane placed a heaping plate in front of Maura, coy smile playing across her lips as she slid into a stool across from the doctor. There had to be precisely fourteen pancakes on each plate, topped in just the right amount of both syrup and butter, with something unexpected on top. Maura raised an eyebrow.

"You put sprinkles on your pancakes." Her tone was analytical, as she tilted her head to the side slightly. There was no way these things were good. Jane just could not cook. It broke the laws of physics as human beings knew them.

"Don't judge. Just eat." The detective mumbled, swallowing a huge bite of fluffy, golden brown pancakes and the strange choice of toppings.

"I do not trust you. You can't cook." Maura hissed, attempting to push the plate away.

"This is not cooking, its baking, and-" The door opened, and Angela stepped through, carrying a bag of farm- fresh eggs and vegetables from the vendor down the road.

"Did Janie make pancakes? Oh God, hers are the best, even better than mine!" The elder woman stated, swiping one off of Jane's plate as she sashayed past, placing the bag on the counter. "Eat up, Maura dear. You don't even understand what you're missing."

"Ma, go away! I am capable of getting Maura to eat my baking without your help, thank you!" Yet the tone that she spoke with was light, airy even. While Jane was distracted by her mother, Maura cut a piece, inspecting it only momentarily before chewing slowly and swallowing. She blushed. It was delicious, like nothing she had ever tasted as far as breakfast foods went anyway. Ten minutes later, she leaned forward on her elbows again, glaring at Jane, who was only half done with her own plate, and still bickering with her mother. That was when the phone rang, only this time, it was Maura's rather than Jane's. She lurched out of her seat, pulling the offending item from her pocket and tossing it behind her. They were off today. No calls, no cases, they could ignore everything. Except, well, one another. They were supposed to go shopping, and then try out the new Italian restaurant down the road that Angela had stated was "simply amazing." Jane's phone buzzed, and Maura slammed her hands down on the table.

"Jane, just pick the damn thing up already, and tell whoever it is to go the Hell away." Maura sighed, dropping her forehead to the cool counter. Angela silenced, as Jane reached for the device, raising it to her ear.

"Detective Rizzo- Don't you dare take that tone with me. I'm off today, thank you. I am not obligated to pick up the phone." She supposed it must have been Korzak calling. There was a pause, where Jane's hand came down on Maura's, something that caused the woman to look up to her friend. The sharp features slowly turned more confused as Korzak relayed whatever message he had to er, before she finally just hung up on him. "Why didn't you tell me he called you to tell you we had a case?"

"No one called me until I threw my phone Jane, what are you talking about?" She couldn't lie, and Jane knew that, so the woman only nodded, reaching for her keys. Maura rose as well; if they had a case, then both of them were needed. She waved goodbye to Angela, who looked at Maura with a questioning expression, to which the doctor's only answer was a shrug. She couldn't lie- she had absolutely no idea what the Hell was going on.


	2. Chapter 2

"He did not call me, if he had, I would have told you." Maura stated again, following Jane as she stepped quickly out of the car and towards the building where they both worked. As the doors slid open, Jane replied as she had before, many times.

"I believe you, Maur. I really do." But something still unsettled the medical examiner. Something still crawled beneath her skin and made her feel as if a storm was building; and she did not refer to just the rain that was forecast for tomorrow. There was something _else,_ something she couldn't quite put her finger on. The team stood around the large screen, turning as the two women entered.

"What is she doing here?" Korzak asked, tilting his head towards the ME, who only furrowed her brow in confusion. Why wouldn't she be here for a case? She was usually needed, to analyze and autopsy the body. And what was going on? All of the detectives seemed more on edge than was usual, especially for a Sunday afternoon.

"She always helps with the cases, Korzak. We'd be over without her!" Jane defended, eyes narrowing. Maura nearly blushed again; she had never really had anyone that would have defended her standing in a place of work, let alone as good a friend as Jane really was.

"The body must be down in the lab, so I'll just go down and run samples to figure out time and cause of death." She whispered, turning towards the elevator. They obviously didn't want her up here with them, while they discussed the case and whatever went on. Not that it mattered much, because Jane would fill her in as soon as possible.

"Maura." Korzak's voice stopped her, hand raised to hit the button to call the elevator in order to descend to the basement laboratories. "We don't _have_ a body." She turned, more confused than before. How could they not have a body? Weren't they working on a case, and didn't that normally mean a death? Especially since they worked in the homicide department?

"Why are we here, Korzak!" Jane nearly shouted, a tick forming over her eyebrow. He pointed to the screen. Jane's eyes widened, and her lips thinned before she shook her head.

"She's gone missing." Maura shoved between shoulders, trying to see what had them all so eerily silent. She stopped dead when she could see the screen. It was a photo she was well accustomed to seeing. It was an ID card, one that they used in this very building.

"Abigail Rocco." Jane whispered, her face quickly turning into what could easily be considered a grimace. "Where does she work? I don't remember her."

"Undercover in DCU." Frost told her, shaking his head.

"Currently on leave for her honeymoon. For real, this time; not another excuse to keep her cover intact." Korzak informed them, clicking through photos of her last few happy days before inexplicably going missing.

"It isn't strange for an undercover agent to go missing, Korzak, why are we here?" Leave it to Jane to get right to the core problem, Maura thought. However, she also suspected that the agent just wanted to go back to the lazy day they had previously been leading.

"That's just it. It wasn't strange for her to go missing, over three weeks ago." At that, they all turned to stare at him. This woman, Abigail, had been missing in action for over three weeks and they had just been called in? There was definitely something wrong there. "Since DCU was working on a major drug bust, they had thought she was in on the plan, only, she never showed up when they finally located and caught the perpetrator. Worried by such an uncharacteristic absence, they brought the issue up to the director, who had no contact from Agent Rocco since the wedding. She was supposed to have been in Barbados, yet never left the states." A long, pregnant silence followed his words. Maura couldn't shake the feeling that there was more going on here than originally appeared on the surface, but as they had said, a Drug Control Agent normally went missing for long periods of time. Someone was just not telling everyone else key information, instead remaining secretive. That had to be it.

Thunder crackled beyond the walls, causing them all to jump slightly, Maura's hand reflexively gripping on to Jane's arm as she glanced towards the glass window located behind her left shoulder. It was raining like there had been a drought over Boston before now, and as if once it stopped there would be another such shortage of water. Dark, steel- grey clouds had moved in fast around the area, and had inexplicably opened up over the city while they had all been discussing the missing person. The medical examiner, however, could not recall any such chance of a thunderstorm predicted for Boston, yet she put little faith in meteorologists; their science was nowhere near as precisely correct as her own.

"Weird, it wasn't supposed to rain today." Frost told them, as Maura forced the muscles in her arm to relax, looking back to the screen. She was much too jumpy, something that was completely out of the ordinary for the medical examiner. Jane tilted her head, asking the silent question of what had gotten Maura so wound up; a question the ME answered only with a shrug. It was probably just the bizarreness of the case, that was all. "It'll probably be all foggy tomorrow, too. Which definitely sucks, because I was supposed to be going out with-"

"You're working tomorrow anyway, Barry." Jane chided, smirking with a barely suppressed chuckle. The agent turned towards her, sticking out his tongue.

"Shut it, Rizzoli! Just because you and Maura had the whole morning to yourselves doing God knows what-"

"God wouldn't know what because our life is _private, _Frost!" As they began what was bound to be another week- long argument, Maura blushed lightly. She knew that Jane would not appreciate anyone knowing that she baked, let alone baked well. Instead, the medical examiner extracted herself from the situation, opting to stand instead beside Frankie's shoulder. The younger Rizzoli sibling grinned.

"I heard she made you breakfast. Damn good breakfast." He patted his stomach in emphasis, as the doctor beamed.

"That it was, Frankie." The way they were talking though, even to Maura, it didn't seem like either Jane or Frost had been thinking innocently about the morning. But Maura was no expert when it came to things like that; she couldn't even figure out her own feelings half the time, because she dealt with logic, not emotion. She just didn't _do _emotion. Especially not when it came to Jane... Jane was always an exception. Always the confounding, independent, unchangeable, uncontrollable variable. "That it was." She whispered again, trying to chase the thoughts from her head. She couldn't deal very well with being confused; it was something that did not happen often, and she liked it that way. Not that Jane didn't confuse her every fifteen seconds or so, but the detective took the time to explain, multiple times over; to be generally patient.

"Isles, if you'd like, you could go back home. We have no body, no samples, nothing." Maura nodded, switching her purse up on to her other shoulder and stepping carefully around the fuming detectives. She whispered her goodbyes to everyone, most of which were too engrossed in the argument between detectives to pay her much notice. If nothing else, she hoped this case was over soon, and it was just a misunderstanding. If there was one thing Maura Isles really did not like, it was doing an autopsy on an agent that she had known. If all went well, she wouldn't be doing such things, and instead would be sitting with Jane in her mansion of a home outside Boston, eating pancakes with sprinkles and trying to make sense of her emotions.

But something inside told her all was _not _going to go well.


	3. Chapter 3

Mirrors. Everywhere. Showing her things. Forcing her to watch. Making her look at herself, without the veil that every human being surrounded themselves with. Making her see what really was, and wasn't, and could be, but couldn't. She turned, and screamed. Where was she? Who was she? She didn't even know- not anymore. The misty form solidified, growing, shrinking, doing everything at once. She backed away, pressing against the nearest mirror. The being stopped, and changed again, always changing, yet not. Its lips turned in a feral smile, before it lunged.

She was going to die.

* * *

Maura writhed, tossing and turning against her sheets. Normally, the mattress was quite comfortable; she paid enough for that at least. But right now, now she couldn't seem to get comfortable for the briefest moment.

"Dammit." She moaned, rising and kicking off the light blanket, stepping out on to what should have been her carpet. Should have been, not was. The medical examiner stopped dead. "Maura Isles, you are not in Boston anymore." Before her was nothing but black... space. She seemed to be in some sort of vacuum; a space that was empty of matter and had close to no atmospheric pressure. Of course it could not be a perfect vacuum, that had yet to be created as of right now. She turned away, looking for the mattress that had transported her here; one with an ivory bedspread, probably kicked off, and a light teal blanket all knotted and tangled into the sheets.

There was just space. Empty, literal vacuum- like space.

"Nowhere to go but forward, Maur." She whispered, talking to herself as if she was Jane; going so far to even use the nickname that the detective had given her when they had met what seemed so long ago. She tested the ground in front of her with one foot, a completely illogical act. If she was in space, where else was there to go but more space? And besides, who even knew if you could walk in space? Wasn't it technically considered floating? There was, after all, no significant gravitational pull unless approaching a mass within a specified distance of its own force. So she moved forward, glancing around.

There was nothing here. Nothing but completely encompassing blackness that possibly would have swallowed anything and everything if there had been anything here. Not that there was anything. There was just black, and more black, and that little slip of white, and more black and-

Little slip of white. Maura trained her eyes on it, focused on the only difference of color in the whole surrounding area. How had she not noticed before? She was certain she had looked around more than once, and had only seen this for the first time now. After how long had she been walking? She had no idea. She approached, moving as quickly as she dared through the space, eyes never once leaving the new color. But it wasn't only color, it was something else. She reached out to press her fingers against the cool metal, the stainless, bright contrast from everything around the medical examiner.

It was a mirror.

* * *

If that incessant buzzing didn't stop, she was going to scream. Jane smacked her hand onto her dresser, hoping to silence the growing annoyance of her alarm clock. Instead, she hit her phone, realizing belatedly that someone was calling her.

"Hullo?" Her voice was thick with sleep, thick with rest that really hadn't help with her rising frustration with this missing person's case. The woman had only been officially reported missing for one day, and the whole thing was becoming more and more strange as the interrogations dragged onwards. Not a single person knew _anything. _Not a damn thing. At least one person usually knew something- be it the tiniest, most uselessly minute detail.

"Did I wake you?" Korzak's voice; of course she should have known that Korzak would be calling her at this time in the morning. Time... She glanced at the clock. It was three thirty five; predawn and everything. She would kill him, when she saw him.

"Yes."

"Sorry. Anyway, we found a body." With that, Jane sat up so abruptly that Jo Friday woke up with a yelp, turning to glare at her with sleepy- dog eyes. "It's Abigail's." Jane sprang out of bed, grabbing the first pair of pants that were clean- or at least smelled like they were. How Maura woke up at all hours of the night to be called in for an autopsy and still managed to look perfect, she would never understand. But the boys had grown used to early- morning- Jane, and didn't care very much about what she looked like when she was called in at two, three, whatever time. Night time, a time one should be sleeping. Many times they looked just as bad, anyway.

"Where? Who? When? When's Maura coming in?" She heard Korzak's tired chuckle, putting her phone on speaker as she pulled on a bra and hopefully clean shirt. The light wasn't on, and outside it was dark. She couldn't see a damn thing, and she thanked the Lord that cars had headlights.

"Our security guard found her hanging from the street light outside the building, only about twenty minutes ago. We've been trying to get in touch with Maura since then. I'll be on scene in a minute, if you could drop by and see what's keeping her." Jane nodded her head, before realizing that he couldn't see it.

"Sure!" She yelled from the bathroom, hoping he heard. He obviously had, or was assuming she answered as she did when he continued.

"Bringing in the whole team on this one, Rizzoli. It seems to be pretty strange." Her lip twitched, but she said nothing as she hurriedly pulled up her hair and brushed her teeth. "Its foggy out, drive carefully."

"Ooo too, Kerzak." She mumbled through toothpaste, listening as he hung up on her. Running out to the car, keys in hand, she wondered vaguely why Maura hadn't answered the calls. She raised her own phone to her ear, listening as it rang, and rang, and rang some more before the voice mail finally picked up. That was strange, Maura always picked up her phone. Especially when Jane called. She could call when the honey blonde was cooking, or driving, or in the shower, and she would always, _always_, pick up. Jane blushed at the last idea, but shook the thoughts out of her head. Maura would never think of her like that. But she just couldn't help herself. Leaving the engine humming, Jane jumped out of the car, knocking loudly on the door.

There was no answer.

* * *

As soon as she touched the mirror, everything changed. She felt as if a piece of her separated; a piece of her she had never known was there. A piece that, maybe, she still didn't know was there. But all she knew was that the image of something, no, someone, was forming across from her. On the mirror. No, _inside _the mirror. But she wouldn't move. She just couldn't, really.

_"I am thou."_ It, she, whispered. _"Thou art I." _Maura was so shocked that all of a sudden, she just wasn't anymore. She felt as if she knew, really knew, exactly who was talking to her. Which was not logical at all, if she thought about it. _"The time has come, for I am needed. Open thine eyes, and call forth,"_

Maura glanced over one shoulder, where strange shapes were approaching her. Misty, unrealistic, inexplicable shapes. She felt fear root itself deep inside of her stomach, resisted the urge to turn and flee._  
_

_"What is within." _It was just a voice. This was all just a dream. She was asleep, this couldn't be real. It was not logical, not possible. She didn't understand, couldn't possibly pressed her back against the mirror, away from the quickly approaching mist- like forms.

"This is just a dream, Maur. Wake up! Wake up, damn it all!" Something swiped at her, and blood welled on one arm, when she hadn't dodged quite quick enough. "Just a dream..." Her breath came ragged, in short gasps. There was no way this could actually be happening. No way that this was real. It just _couldn't_ be; it was a fantasy, and Maura Isles did not _do _fantasies. One of the creatures dove towards her. She was also not a reckless person, always in control, always ready for anything.

But now, she was scared. She would do anything to get out of this.

"Per..." Anything to wake up from this, this, nightmare. Anything to see Jane again. "Sona..."

She exploded from behind Maura, mirror shattering into fragments of ghost- like glass as she did so. Twin blades spun; massive lances with hooked ends on each side, one in each of her hands. The misty beings did not part before her, but tried to attack, only to blast apart much like the mirror did. It was over in a heartbeat, where Maura stood panting, looking at her. "Who are you?" She found herself whispering, taking the few short steps forward as she analyzed the ethereal being standing before her.

_"You may ask me that many times, I fear."_ The voice sounded so familiar, but it wasn't truly there, in the here and now, and for the strangest reason, Maura couldn't immediately place it. _"Katapolemi Kardia. For now."_

"The Fighting Heart. What a curious name. Greek, isn't it." Her graceful head nodded, a sharpened helmet moving with the motion. There were three main prongs on the guard, and a full- face visor that dropped to just over the being's lips. On the side, in metal spikes, the helmet tapered. With what seemed to be the same material, silver and black detailed guards covered all but the elbows of both arms, tapering to points when one armor- like piece ended. She wore a skirt, and a corset- like top that was mainly red, yet braced and protected with metal, all of it matching. She shifted her weight, and Maura noticed the boots; always a follower of designer fashion, especially shoes. She had no idea what company would have made such things, not with the metal plaited front that came up to guard over the knee, and the metal bracing over every weak, and definitely important, ligament of the ankle and foot. She had attached the two bo- staff like weapons to her sides; they collapsed into smaller, plain, steel rods, with no blades, to a belt that was worn skew over a pleated, uniform- like skirt. That was when movement caught Maura's eyes. She had been sure that the woman- like creature had not moved very much, if at all. That was when Maura realized that really, she hadn't. Or at least, only _part _of her had.

She had wings.

And not fairy wings, either. They were long, with each blade spread out on the end, as if they had been forged crooked. Light from an unknown source glinted off the edges, off of the edges of the smaller blades that had sprouted from her shoulders as a protective, offensive shield around the joint. Maura couldn't help herself; she reached forward. And the tall, unrealistic, savior of a woman reached out her own long- fingered hands.

_"We only part, to meet again." _Looking up into the eyeless, glassless face, Maura opened her mouth to make a snappy remark about how she didn't understand the meaning of that, because it was probably a rhetorical statement, when the chance to say anything was taken from her.

Once again, everything had fallen to black.


	4. Chapter 4

Jane fished around in her pocket, looking for the keys she had to Maura's home; an 'emergency stash,' but this definitely counted as an emergency. When she didn't find the keys, and couldn't remember where the Hell she had left them, Jane all but growled into the foggy morning air. What would she do if Maura was next? Why was she jumping to conclusions like that anyway? The detective pulled her gun from its holster, slamming the butt of it through the glass window of the door, not even acknowledging as glass stabbed through her hand, lacerating the skin. She hit the lock, shouldering open the door and slamming it behind her.

What if Maura was next?

* * *

Her breathing came in pants, and she laid her head back against the pillows. That dream, seeing the smoke- things coming after her, that was messed up. And then that woman, Kat, coming out of the mirror- wait. Maura shot up from her semi- slumber again. She remembered the dream.

She _remembered _her dream.

That was definitely a first. Especially since she hadn't been sleeping all that was for the past couple weeks. The doctor shook her head, prepared to lean back into the forgiving comforts of her mattress, when she heard the door slam. It was close to four in the morning, who could possibly be coming into, breaking into, her house at this time of the morning? She slid one hand beneath her pillow, drawing out a cool metal object. Jane must really be rubbing off on her; she was, not only jumping to conclusions, but completely prepared to defend herself. Briefly, she checked that it was loaded, before snapping the safety from the pistol. Her nerves were much too on edge for someone to be in her house. She crept outwards, keeping her back to the wall as she approached the stairs, gun cocked and ready, as she had seen Jane do, countless times before.

* * *

Maura would be upstairs, in her bedroom. That was where she would be. Jane wouldn't let herself think otherwise, as she crept around dark corners, back always kept against the wall, nerves on fire. She wouldn't be able to handle if anything had happened to Maura. Especially not that they needed her talents to answer countless questions in that wonderful way of speaking like she was a Google search engine. Yes, that was all this was. Work- related.

"Jane?" The detective looked up, holstering her gun with a sigh of relief. To be completely honest with herself, she wasn't completely sure why she had kept it out after breaking the door. All she knew that Maura, Doctor Isles, was standing at the top of her stairs, dressed in what she supposed were black yoga pants and a tank top. "Why are you in my house this early in the morning?"

"You should have answered your phone, Maur." The detective replied, smirking as she launched up the steps; two, three, maybe even four at a didn't stop until she had wrapped her arms around the shorter woman in a tight, unyielding hug. "I was so worried that..." She couldn't finish, instead shaking her head. The doctor pulled back, her eyes soft, understanding. But also slightly worried.

"That I would be next." Jane paused, before nodding slightly. They were silent; Maura, trying to understand what emotion made Jane so protective, so concerned over her well being, and Jane, trying to remember why she came here in the first place, and not drown in the hazel abyss that was Maura's eyes. She remembered as suddenly as she had forgotten.

"Um, Maur, Korzak's got a body." The woman changed; no longer that woman who had just been so confused over her own emotions and those of her friend's, instead now the doctor who spoke like she was from the internet and made no guesses whatsoever. She nodded, turning back towards the slightly ajar door that led to her bedroom, as Jane followed, flopping down on a bed that was absolutely ripped apart. "Have a rough night?"

"Strange dream." She couldn't really remember what had happened anymore, which was strange for her; she remembered everything and anything, right down to the tiniest detail. Clicking the safety catch back on the pistol, Maura leaned over her friend, sliding the weapon beneath the pillows to where it was before, breath catching slightly as she moved so close. Holding up a finger for a one- minute wait, she disappeared into the bathroom, coming out only a little bit longer than a minute later, dressed in a plain black skirt and ruffled red blouse. Jane sighed. "What?"

"How do you look so perfect in the mornings? It's what, four A.M.?"

"Precisely three forty- eight to be exact." Maura grinned, a wise smile that showed up only every time she spoke to Jane, except for maybe that one time they fought. Which lasted about a week, but still. It was one argument, and she was slightly justified. It was normally not okay to shoot your best friend's father. Yet Jane had also been justified; he was going to shoot her first. And Maura would not have survived if that had happened. Hell, she would have died in poisoned water because her leg had swelled and she'd been severely delusional. She had to stop thinking about this. "I would say I try, but I really don't. I've had the same morning routine for so long that it has really become second nature to me now." Jane's crooked smirk made her stop there, before completely sinking into a tangent about the human ability to learn such routines according to muscle memory, and could, rhetorically of course, complete such tasks while asleep. Instead, she just stopped, grinning again.

"I'm proud of you, Maur."

"Why?" She turned to glance at the detective before opening the door to go out to the car, keys in hand.

"You took my advice, and actually keep a pistol beside your head when you sleep." She almost blushed, and was almost glad that they hadn't bothered to turn on the light in the kitchen.

"I take your advice rather often, I must confess." That was when she turned back to her door, and her gaze hardened. "Jane."

"Oh shit." It was that lecture voice, and she knew what was coming to her, before Maura even said it.

"What happened to my door, Jane!" The detective backed up a step, as the medical examiner whirled around.

"I'll fix it Maur! i was worried! I'm sorry!"

"There is glass everywhere Jane!" Raising her arms, the detective pleaded; this medical examiner was not the one that any sane person wished to piss off. She, for all Jane knew, could kill her without leaving the slightest trace and never, ever be caught. "What the hell did you do to my door!"

"I was- hey Maur, did you just curse?" The doctor spun with another exaggerated sigh, shaking her head as she opened the now- broken door. "You _did, _didn't you. Wait until I tell the boys that the sweet, innocent Doctor Isles actually let slip a minor curse-" This time, Maura had her crushed up against the car door, a feat that was neither understandable nor easy.

"You wouldn't." Not an angry tone of voice, but threatening it was. Jane nodded, paling slightly. She could dream all she liked about this woman, but it was moments like these that were just... They needed to end hot. Really, atrociously hot. "Get in the car." Like with a very bossy Maura, for instance.

"Yes ma'am."


	5. Chapter 5

Maura leaned over the body of the Drug Control Officer's body. She had never seen anything like this, and she had seen very many things working for homicide. But this, this was, for lack of a better term, weird. Really, really weird. According to the dental records, this was Abigail Rocco. However, it was, very strange Abigail. She was, for lack of a better justification, severely aged. Close to fifty or so years made her roughly eighty- two. She was, at the time of her disappearance, only about thirty. As Maura had thought earlier, this was just plain weird.

She took a few steps back, falling into her chair. It was, precisely, one thirty- seven. She probably should have eaten by now, but she hadn't. Leaning forward on one elbow, she glared those proverbial daggers at the body. If looks could kill something already dead, this body would have re- died multiple times. If such a thing was even possible in the universal continuum that they inhabited. Maura dropped her head to her desk, winding her fingers into her hair, frustrated.

The door opened, but she couldn't find it inside of herself to care enough about whoever just walked in. They placed something carefully in front of her. It smelled good, like... Chicken, with some type of pepper. And it better have cheese, it was that kind of day where a woman needed a sandwich with cheese, and some serious loving right after. Or just the sandwich. Mostly food, in general. A hand brushed against her shoulders, and the medical examiner turned her head slightly, to rest it sideways on an arm.

"Brought you food. Sorry I'm late, the hardware store was giving me a hard time about buying a six paneled window with custom decal on a rush order for tomorrow." Maura couldn't help but smile weakly at that. Jane could be annoying, and definitely broke into her house this morning, but she was true to her word. She was trying her best to fix the problem as quickly as possible, and had only done so because she had cared immensely about Maura's own well- being. Not that any of the calls from either Jane or Korzak had come through her phone in the short amount of time that she had waited. She lifted her phone, checking now. Still nothing. With a roll of her eyes, she glances at the food.

"What is in it?" Jane smirked, definitely having expected the question.

"It's kind of similar to a chicken parm, except without the sauce. Its chicken, with roasted peppers, mozzarella, extra mozzarella, and honey mustard. I believe they called it a North Church Special or something like that. Or, since the guards wouldn't let me bring you in a beer, I brought this instead." She held up a king- sized packet of twix bars, which Maura found herself eying up excessively.

"I will most definitely start with that." Jane did well, very well indeed. The best, in fact, as she usually was.

"Tough day?" Maura nodded, mouth otherwise occupied with chocolate and caramel goodness. "Did you get us cause of death yet? Or time?" The caramel suddenly froze, hardening into a rock in the center of the doctor's throat. Jane was going to think she was absolutely insane. "Maur, you alright?" The doctor nodded, even though it was kind of a lie. Not only did she now have chocolate stuck in her throat, but she had to break the strangest news to her best friend. The one that guessed a lot more than necessary, and made a lot of assumptions, and plain out believed in this type of... of... crap. She swallowed.

"Kind of."

"You don't 'kind of' anything, Google. You know everything." Jane tilted her head, curious. Maura shook her head, shrugging.

"Its just really strange. I don't really get it myself to be honest." And she was the one that had spent the past eight and a half hours running samples and dissecting everything that the body of Abigail could have possibly told her. "Natural causes." Jane's brow furrowed, but that wasn't even Maura's rhetorical bomb yet. "To be exact, old age." Jane flinched, falling off the chair with shock.

"Maur, she was thirty!"

"I know. Her body shows signs of being above the age of eighty, however, with the way that the-"

"Before you go all Google, Maur, how does that even make sense? She was thirty, three weeks ago. She can't be over eighty, its not physically possibly because at the rate that the Earth rotates around the sun and the respective frame of reference- holy shit I sound like you." Maura rested her head down on the table again, closing her eyes.

"I know. I know it doesn't make any sense, but that is what every test," She pulled out a rather thick file from the stack to her left, handing it to Jane. "retest, and third test have said. I am not inaccurate. She died of old age, Jane. And she died of old age precisely three minutes, fifteen seconds, and thirty- seven milliseconds before that security guard found her hanging on the light post."

"So she was hung post- mordem." The detective asked, flipping through the neatly categorized multiple- tests of the same things.

"Hanged, Jane, she wasn't an inanimate object. But yes, she was hanged after dying of old age." They were silent, before the detective snapped the folder shut.

"Is there any scientific way to cause such a drastic change in aging?"

"Not that I know of as of the current time and scientific experimentation. Nearly every scientist is currently absorbed in genetic cloning, genetic mutation of food livestock, the abortion argument about what it could mean for a fetus and humane laws, and nuclear and genetic warfare." Jane just nodded, and Maura found herself expecting that the woman had stopped listening after the word 'of'- if she had even listened past 'not'. Not that she minded; Jane normally listened, just not when they were working, unless it was vitally important to the case.

"Do you want me to take this upstairs to Korzak?" Maura nodded, her eyes wandering to the still steaming- hot array of food in front of her.

"If you would. I'll run more samples and see if I missed anything. Which there is a severely low chance of, but always the slightest chance." Jane rose, cleaning up her own array of food quickly, smirk gracing her face once again.

"Maur, you never miss anything. We have faith in you, and we'll figure this out. I promise. And eat some food; it won't do to have you dying from hunger." Her eyes stayed glued to the receding form, even as she stopped herself from telling the detective that she wouldn't die from missing one meal, they had both gone longer than that without food. Instead, she lifted the specialty sandwich to her lips and took a bite, slightly surprised that such an interesting combination was so good. Not that she didn't believe in Jane.

After all, Jane Rizzoli never once lied to her.


	6. Chapter 6

Three bodies on her table. Only nine days. Officers. Officers that they had known, had worked with them. Drug Control, Boston Police, Family Detective. A fourth one that she was driving in to go examine. She couldn't deal with this anymore. There was so much pressure lifted on to her shoulders. She understood that this was the job of the chief medical examiner for Boston Homicide, but this was getting ridiculous. She could see her job in the lines of her face, in the faces of the rest of the homicide department. She could see it on Jane's face, on her own in the mirror.

In the mirror.

She wished that this was all a horrible dream, and Maura Isles was not one to believe in wishing; be it on a star, or just wishing in general. It was an illogical superstition made to express profuse desires that one was not able to accomplish on their own but had too much pride to ask for help. Like how she wished Jane would see her as more than a best friend. That was a wish, though it was a pretty big one.

But none of this nightmarish work schedule was a dream. No, she was having too many of those for this to be a dream also. Not that she could remember what her dreams were about, not in the slightest. She would wake up in a cold sweat, scared out of her mind, and completely un- rested. After more than a week of this, it was getting old. And getting old fast. Maura gripped tighter on to her steering wheel, turning expertly into the building's parking lot, noticing as she parked that Jane's car was right beside her. At least there was one person here who believed her. Maura dragged herself into the building, swiping her ID card to let herself into the main floor for homicide detectives. There was no one up here, and she shook her head, glancing up at the ceiling briefly. How dare they go down to her lab before she got here.

The elevator dinged, and Maura was met with a slightly watery- eyed Jane. She reached up, brushing away the amassed water, opening her mouth to ask what happened, when Jane moved sideways ever so slightly. The entire homicide department was seated on the floor, leaning against the wall, somewhere.

"Its Tony, Maur." He was the newest recruit to their division, and though she had only seen him sparingly at most, she would have recognized an officer from Homicide anywhere. Maura only shook her head, disbelieving. She normally always took comfort in facts, but this she couldn't find herself comfortable with.

"All of you out." She hissed, and eight sets of eyes locked on to her. "I can't work with you all here. I'll work as quickly and efficiently as i can." They nodded, slowly bowing their heads to the corpse, before retreating to the elevators. Jane rested her hand on Maura's back briefly, and her heart pleaded to stop Jane from turning around and leaving also, but she couldn't. Jane would be a distraction down here, and she couldn't have a distraction on top of the lack of sleep. pulling on a pair of gloves and shrugging into her autopsy coat, Maura made the sign of a cross over her chest, even though she believed in no Lord like many of the others. She slid out her scalpel, and set to work. If she blocked out the world, everything would be okay.

Yes, she would find an answer, and everything would be okay.

* * *

Their eyes turned to her. She could feel the heat of all of their gazes. And she knew, better than anything, that she should have kept testing until she got a different result. She should not have come up here. She should have stayed down in the lab, and tested, and kept testing. But it was all the same. Every result was the same.

"Natural old age." She whispered.

"That's bullshit Isles!" Korzak shouted, slamming his hands down on the desk, rising. She knew they were all going to be angry, but she had no other answer. There was no other answer. "He was twenty- three!"

"You think I don't know that?" She found herself shouting back. What did they think she was, some unfeeling, cyborg- like human? She had emotions, even if she didn't understand them. "I knew him too, Korzak!"

"Did you? DO you know any of them down there? They work with us, Isles! They actually socialize, unlike someone that hides inside herself all the time, relying on literal facts rather than social contact and-"

"Don't you dare talk to her that way!" Jane was suddenly right beside her, shouting at the highest of her voice. "If she says that it was natural causes, then it was fucking natural causes, Korzak!"

"I can't change what the bodies and the samples and everything you have gotten me are showing me! You know that!" Her voice was so close to cracking, so close to falling to pieces. How could they do this to her? She had done nothing but her best for them, ever since she started here three years ago.

"For all we know its your good old father killing them, and you're covering for him! Daddy's little girl, isn't it? Isles, you've been good until now, but this is completely preposterous!" There were many cries in agreement; she should have known that so many opinions would change when they all found out that a homicidal maniacal mobster was the prim- and- proper Maura Isles' father. She should have known they would believe what they had seen over what she was telling them.

"I... I would never, Korzak. I wouldn't..." She was too tired, too stabbed in the back, rhetorically speaking. It hurt, to know that they felt that way about her.

"What the hell are you saying Korzak! Just because he was in homicide doesn't mean anything! Or if it does, it means that Maura is trying harder to figure this all out!" She didn't know who's voice it was, but she knew it wasn't Jane's. Perhaps it was Frankie, perhaps it was someone else. She just didn't know anymore. And she didn't like that feeling. She wanted to give them a better answer, one that made sense, but she didn't have one. Over all the shouting, she heard only one thing.

"Isles, you're off the case."

It was similar to the atomic bomb of Hiroshima. Everything fell silent immediately. Maura's breath stopped, as it seemed, so did everyone elses'. Was he serious? She was not distorting the facts in the slightest; there was just simply nothing there. She blinked. This was a dream, it had to be.

"Korzak, you can't do that!" Her head snapped in the direction of Jane's voice. "Where would we be without Maura? She's trying her hardest, like always and-"

"Rizzoli, cut the crap or you'll be out of a job next!"

"Don't you dare threaten-" Maura rested her hand on Jane's shoulder, shaking her head. She could feel eyes on her; Frankie, Frost, all of them.

"Don't. Its alright. I'll go." She twitched her lip, trying to smile slightly and failing miserably. Reaching over to Jane's desk, Maura shouldered her bag, nodding to the other agents.

"Maur-"

"Don't lose your job on my account, Jane. Its alright, really." She tried to sound confident; as she would have normally. But as Maura stepped into her car and turned the key in the ignition, she knew better. Nothing was alright. She didn't know how much longer she could handle all of this, how much longer any of them could. Though, somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she should have stopped worrying about it; she was just essentially fired. But Maura knew better, she knew that nothing concerning this case was over for her. Jamming on the brakes, she spun around a turn she had barely registered being there. There was no way she was going to go home; this pissed her off too much. How dare he not believe her? What had she ever done that would have made them distrust her?

She didn't understand, stepping on the accelerator. She was not normally one to run, but this? This was even too much for her nerves to handle. As her tires spun on a road that turned slowly to gravel, miniscule rocks shooting in every direction as she went just a little bit too fast, mind in every place but the one where it should have been- the road.


	7. Chapter 7

The car door slammed, and Maura stepped carefully over the gravel driveway. She should have known better than to come here, especially in five inch heels. And a long skirt, even if it wasn't one of her tightest such skirts. Not that there were many people here at this time of day, or on a Wednesday in general. She closed her eyes, inhaling the scent of freshly cut hay, leather, and horse. Not many people knew that she had experience when it came to equestrian sports, though they probably should have guessed, since she went to boarding school in Europe. But this was her corner of paradise, especially when nothing made sense, and she had just been fired.

Maura looked over to the right when she heard what sounded like an echoing bang. Then she shook her head, unable to keep a smile from gracing her lips.

"Dammit!" The muffled cry met her ears as she made her way over to the arena, leaning up against the fence when she had crossed the driveway and passed the currently empty stable block. Since it was roughly midday, the majority of the horses had already been put out into designated pastures, and could be seen dotting the hillsides. A fifteen hand stallion threw his head up when she approached, galloping towards the fencing that she leaned against.

Humans could be vain, nasty creatures. Maura knew that; it was one of the reasons that she chose to work the majority of the time with the dead, rather than the living. But the horses? It was love; unconditional love. Tears came to the corners of her eyes as she spread her arms out, welcoming the blood- bay stallion into her space. A little mare was also tied to the fencing to her left, resting a hind leg that had grown slightly crooked, her saddle perched loosely on her back, two bridles hanging from the reached over the white rails, scratching her neck right behind the ear that was flicked forward. Another sound echoed; and Maura rolled her eyes as she looked over to the barrels that were being set up and moved carefully. The stallion pricked his ears, staring at her intently out of dark chocolate eyes, and she sighed.

"Winter, really." Another curse came out, this time directed towards a white pole that had apparently not straightened correctly. "Does it really help to shout at them?" She asked, shouting across the arena to the red- headed girl who was crouching awkwardly, trying to discern the straightness of the poles.

"Yes it does!" The girl shouted back, raising one hand in a wave, before moving the sixth pole to the left by only a few inches. "Its like talking to the strides between your jumps, it _always _makes them smoother!" With a bright smile, the girl turned, shaking her head, before pulling out her phone and checking it. She approached the mare, as Maura perched on the top rail of the fence, content enough to watch as she ran the mare around the gymkhana setup. "You shouldn't be here yet, Maura. You said you were working a case this week. Did you finish early?" The doctor's face must have fallen, because the smile faded from the girl's face. "Maura, can I do anything to help? Anything at all?"

"No. I'm off the case, and that would be all there is to it." Leaning over the 13.3 hand high mare's back, the red head only stared at the ME for a moment longer, before shrugging. She dropped a topic when asked, and had the tendency to always be listening when one needed to talk. Though Maura was more reserved around her than Jane, for instance, she sometimes took her time in speaking to the extremely mature for her age eighteen year old. "Thank you, Nat." She whispered, as the girl tossed split reins over the mare's neck.

"Hey, any time. The Bitch and I are always here to listen." The mare tossed her head up, long ears flicking to the side as if to prove her pet- name true.

"Awe, Silver, is she being mean again?" The mare ducked her head, bashful look on her face as she took the bit, both women laughing.

"No more than she was. Which is... Quite a bit, actually. We have a tendency to be kind of bitchy." Maura just grinned, smoothing the forelock of her horse, who had stayed solidly at her side the entire time. "Hey, join us on Winter. Come on, please. Its always more fun when there's someone to run against."

"Nat, the saddle is all the way in the barn, and I really do not feel like expending the amount of effort that walking over to get it requires, when he is so kindly standing right here." The girl beamed, holding out the bridle that had been on her saddle.

"Come on, you don't need one. I've seen you jump without a saddle." Maura raised an eyebrow, mouth gaping.

"I'm in a skirt! And heels!" The girl's smile widened, if at all possible. "Natalia, don't you start that coy crap with me!" Her dark grey eyes darted to the bridle, and finally, Maura took the leather piece. "Fine. You win. But only because I had a really bad day at work."

"And because Winter is a good boy."

"And because I love my Winter." Maura tossed the reins over his neck, rubbing the side of his face until he opened his mouth for the bit. She had gotten him from a rescue, and one of his few quirks was his anxiety concerning the bridle. But Maura was a patient person, and she would wait for him to calm down enough to open his then clucked, until he had pulled even with the fence line, pulling her skirt up to about mid- thigh and tossing one leg over his back. When she settled, she turned him towards the gate, unlocking it and joining the younger girl in the arena. "Happy now?"

"Yes!" Maura couldn't help but laugh at that reaction, too, shaking her head. She was glad she had come here, and glad that it had been only Nat that was here, and not any of the other boarders. "I've got all of our gymkhana crap set up, speed barrels excluded of course, because the poles are over there." Maura nodded, taking it all in, including the various obstacles for trail classes also. And the jumps that were crushed against the side of the arena fencing.

"Hey, running sounds fantastic to me. He likes it, I don't mind it, and you're about as patient about teaching me as I am about teaching you over fences." She turned, picking up a slow jog anyway, warming him up over the trail obstacles; half passing over and between poles, stepping up and over the pallet bridges. After a bit, she picked up a slow lope, increasing i speed down the straight side. "Woah." The low word, and the stallion sat, sliding for the better part of eight he settled again, she moved her hand.

Maura couldn't help but raise her hands to the air. There was always something spectacular about feeling a horse spin. She cued him to stop again, bracing one hand in his thick black mane.

"You enjoy the western horse too much, you English jumper, you." Maura smiled, walking over to the cones that marked one of the various start lines.

"Barrel dash first?" Nat nodded, grinning. Maura couldn't help but feel that this was the best decision she could have made when just being fired from her job; she could, at least for a little bit, forget about pretty much everything.

* * *

Jane was worried. She hit redial for the sixth time in about twenty minutes. She was definitely worried, as the phone rang until directing her to voice mail, again. Jane was definitely worried, now. And the trace she had called in on Maura's phone was not helping; it had led her down some gravel road and out in the middle of pretty much nowhere. Not somewhere she would have expected Maura to go.

Especially not when the tree- sheltered drive opened up into a full stable- complex. With only two cars in the parking lot. She lifted the phone to her ear again, as she approached the car that she identified as the doctors, snapping it shut when she realized that her purse was in the front seat, and Maura was not.

"Twelve- zero- eight! Almost, Nat!" Jane spun. She would recognize that voice anywhere. "Our turn, yes Winter?" Jane approached, watching as too brownish- colored horse approached one another, before the larger one of them made a circle and picked up a faster pace. Jane leaned forward on the fence, heart in her throat. The horse shot past a set of cones, ducking left around a barrel, back end sliding around as he shot across to the one opposite, spinning around that one before going towards a third. The horse came around, and Maura, for there was no one else with hair quite that shade of golden honey blonde, raised a hand with what looked like a red and black braid in her hand, snapping it behind her left and then right leg. He moved at a speed that made his previous one look slow.

"Twelve- zero- three! Damn you, Maura!"

"Language! Woah!" The horse sat down; that was the only way that Jane could describe it. He sat down and dust came up on both sides of him as he slid, front legs chopping into the ground as he went. "Not bad. Good boy, Winter."As soon as he had stepped up again, they shook, dust floating up once again.

"I do not look forward to senior racing next year, its going to be bad."

"You just simply will not win anymore." Maura shifted one hand, and the horse turned, and her eyes locked onto Jane's. "Jane!"

"Holy shit, Maur, that was awesome!" the doctor raised one hand up to her mouth as if to stifle giggles, while the other girl just burst out laughing atop her own horse.

"Language, Jane." The detective raised an eyebrow, as if asking if she was for real. She had just witnessed what seemed to be a record- breaking run of some barrel- including pattern that she knew nothing about, and Maura was worried about her language? How, well, typical. "What brought you here?"

"Traced your phone. Got a little bit worried when you weren't answering for over a half hour." Heat crept up Maura's cheeks, and she turned her gaze downward. "Figured you were trying to put on a strong face for the others, and what Korzak said really did bother you."

"Yes. But I'm okay now." She moved the horse until he was standing beside Jane, and the detective's eyes flicked to the amount of thigh that was exposed in the doctor's current position.

"He had no right to kick you off the case, Maur, and we all know it. What can the others do that you can't? I mean, if you say natural causes then it is obviously natural causes no matter how strange and unrealistic that may seem given the circumstantial evidence and-"

"Thank you." Jane clamped her mouth shut, realizing she had been rambling. Instead she reached forward and scratched the white numbers on her horse's neck. "Jane Clementine Rizzoli, meet Late Night Winter's Fight. Winter, Jane. Play nice now." he bobbed his head towards her, blinking a large eye.

"My pleasure, good sir." Maura smiled, before Jane looked up to her. "Hey Maur, I didn't know you rode horses, let alone owned one. That is so awesome!"

The doctor smirked; she could always rely on Jane to lighten such a dense, crushing mood. Really, she could rely on Jane all the time, no matter the 'circumstantial evidence' as she so kindly stated earlier.


	8. Chapter 8

She was running, running away from... Well, she didn't really know what. All she knew was that she had to get away from it. It was after her, and it was not going to stop until it had devoured her. She turned, only to see it running right behind her, a feral smile painted across its features. Not that one could focus on the misty- being's creatures for very long, it always seemed to be changing! Forever changing; the way it was forever there, right behind a person, like a shadow. Like a shadow that was being shielded from the eyes of its own body! It was maddening and-

A mirror exploded. Every mirror in an endless room of endless mirrors shattered, and the beast sprang forth, what could loosely be defined as claws extended towards her abdomen. The scream was maddening, echoing as if it was not one person screaming but many; millions of people with the same voice. The mist- like form came into a sudden clarity, just as she reached forward to touch her. A doppleganger, a twin of herself that would cause her end. Their skin touched and

* * *

Maura shot up, shivering. She had been taken off the homicide case three days ago. Three very long, long days. And her dreams had not stopped. If anything, they had gotten worse. This one, for instance. She had been there, she was the person who had just realized she was about to be killed. And it had been clearer than anything. She rose, shaking with the dread of what she had just seen in a clarity that was infuriating; she could remember that which was happening, but not like she had just seen it. The doctor stepped over to the dresser, hitting the first speed- dial she thought of.

Maura Isles could hope that the woman would answer, and could not see any logical reason that she wouldn't. Though Jane was still on the case that Maura had been judged inadequate for, there was no differences between them both. Or so she could hope.

As she listened to a ring back tone of Adele's Rumor Has It, Maura grabbed the gun from beneath her pillow. She knew, in the logical piece of her brain, that she was acting silly and that nothing was here, and nothing was going to hurt her. But she felt like she was coming undone at the seams, and it scared her.

"Hullo?" She almost cried at the voice, be it tired and slightly annoyed.

"I'm sorry, did I wake you?" There sounded like movement, before a more awake Jane Rizzoli was speaking to her.

"Maura? What's wrong? What happened? Are you okay?" Maura smiled, realizing then that she was crying. She reached up, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand as she paced back and forth in the master bedroom.

"I'm... I'm... Yes. No. I don't know, Jane." She rubbed her forehead again, shutting her eyes as she stepped slowly towards the bathroom. She probably should have turned on the light before she got up, but she had not been thinking like that. She had been thinking that she had to call Jane, and she had to call her right then.

"Talk to me Maur. Do you want me to come over? You know what? Too bad, I'm coming anyway."

"Its really nothing Jane, I'm sorry to wake you. It was just-" She stopped, looking into her bathroom mirror. She saw herself, but not really.

"Maur? What happened. Maura? Maura! Talk to me!" The helmeted creature though, she wrapped herself around the Maura in the mirror. And then she backed away, looking at her hands as if she was afraid. Then she looked to the mirror.

And it was no longer that helmeted creature that the medical examiner was not really afraid of.

She was mist.

And she was approaching the mirror. Maura's phone slipped from her hand. Dreams. Mirrors. Creatures that could not be fought, because they were the person trying to fight. Maura dug one hand into the marble of her sink, unable to move, unable to think. She knew how they were dying. Not completely how, but she had a hunch. And she was next.

Maura Isles was going to die.

* * *

Jane slammed on her accelerator. When the phone had gone dead, she had no idea what to think. Slamming on the accelerator, she was determined to turn a fifteen minute drive into one that took only eight; or hopefully brakes screeched, as she repeatedly hit redial on the phone, having a nagging suspicion that Maura was not coherent enough to pick it up if she even heard it.

Jane had never heard her best friend sound so distraught. She cried, and often too, but this... This sounded different. This had been frightening. It had been like Maura had been afraid of something, and then turned around and realized that whatever was making her feel like so had been standing right behind her. Like a shadow or something.

Jane slammed on the brakes, pulling her gun out of her pocket as she jumped out of the car. At least this time, she had remembered her key to the house, and wouldn't have to buy another window.

A gun banged.

"Maura!" Raising her gun and sighting down the barrel, she sprinted towards the stairs, up them, towards the master suit. That was where the shot had come from, she was certain. And Maura was still in there, she knew. Kicking the door, Jane tightened her finger over the trigger. "I swear to the fucking authority, if you've hurt Maura, I will rip out your bones and crush them into a fine powder!" She shouldered open the bathroom door, gun going through first. "Oh, Maura!" Her gun clanked as it hit the ground, but the Detective couldn't really care less at that exact moment.

"Its coming for me." The woman whispered, head in her hands. She was backed against the far wall, knees pulled tight to her chest. "It kills them, and we can't figure it out, and I'm next!"Jane slid her hands into honey- blonde locks, making the medical examiner look at her. Her usually analytical, focused hazel eyes had a wild, glassy look to them, and she quivered. "I'm next, Jane." A whisper this time.

"No. Nothing is going to kill you. Hell, nothing is going to even touch you. I won't let them, okay? And I'm here now." Maura's lip quivered, before she launched herself around Jane in the tightest hug. "I'm here."

"Maura, sweetheart?" Jane held a finger up in a shushing gesture as her mother ran into the room.

"I've got you." Angela furrowed her brow, and Jane made a face.

"Heard a gun shot." The elder Rizzoli mouthed, and Jane flicked her eyes to Maura, and then to the shattered glass that surrounded them. And to the empty spot on the wall where her vanity mirror had been standing just a few hours earlier. Angela nodded, backing out carefully when Jane just continued to stroke the doctor's hair, holding her tightly as she cried.

"Come on, its late Maur. You need to get some rest, okay?" A hand fisted tightly into her shirt.

"Don't leave." Jane shook her head slightly against Maura's hair. As she lifted the lighter doctor and turned out of the glass- fragmented bathroom, Jane barely breathed her words.

"I won't ever go anywhere."


	9. Chapter 9

Maura stood, again in an empty space. But she was not afraid this time, and it was as if she was home. She felt... Well, she felt comfortable in the space. She blinked, and the area before her began to sparkle. With her left hand, the medical examiner shaded her eyes; not that the faint glowing of the space really hurt her. Reflexes and habits were just extremely hard to break.

A mirror formed before her.

It was a strange looking mirror. There seemed to be no edges, it seemed to just go on forever. No, it ended. It was only the height of her body, and the same width. But the edges seemed to just fade into nothing. The surface of it sparkled, and her reflection formed slowly. A woman was staring at her. One with armor and helmet, and friendly eyes. She placed a hand against the mirror's surface.

Maura raised her own, and connected.

The surface felt cool for the briefest fraction of a second, before it seemed to just not exist any longer. And she was standing there, hand to hand with what she had called her reflection. The armored woman floated; not really touching the ground, but seeming to balance on the non existent air itself. The palm she touched felt normal; as normal as anything really could. And this person was not threatening. Maura knew her.

"Is this a dream?" She whispered._  
_

"_No."_ A voice she had not heard many times before, but felt as though it came from within her.

"I thought I had... Fallen asleep... After..."

"_Your body is asleep. But this is not a dream. Not really, in the literal meaning of the word." _Maura dropped her hand, and sat down on a chair. The lips of the floating person twitched slightly into a grin.

"Who are you?" Maura couldn't help but ask; her curiosity was getting the better of her.

"_Katapolemi Kardia."_ It sounded familiar, like something she had asked before and heard the answer to. "_Greek, for the Fighting Heart." _Maura nodded. She knew that. She spoke Greek.

"Are you..." She bit down on her lip briefly, before meeting the woman's gaze again. "Are you my reflection in the mirror?"

"_One of them."_ Kat crossed her legs, leaning forward on one elbow. Maura's vision was suddenly changed, and she saw herself. She saw herself looking into a mirror, where first she saw Kat, and then she saw some white mist- like creature coming towards her. She watched as she raised her gun and shot the mirror, huddling in against herself beside the wall.

"That! What, how, I don't understand!"

"_I am not that one. I am a better reflection of you." _Maura jerked her head up, glaring defiantly at the being.

"That was not-" And then she stopped. It was starting to make sense. "It is foggy today, isn't it."

"_Yes. They get inexplicably agitated when it is foggy in your portion of the world."_ Maura leaned forward on her elbows again, resting her chin on her hands.

"The bodies have been showing up on, as you put it, our side, on foggy days." Kat nodded. "These things are killing them, aren't they."

"_I believe so, as do you."_ Maura nodded, closing her eyes and rubbing her forehead. "_What else do you wish to ask?_"

"Could you, please, tell me about this world?"

_"I do not know much more about it than you do. My memories are, shall we say, foggy." _Maura nodded. _"I do know that there are people, human people, who have come here before. And they have controlled this world. Made things appear that had not been there before, created a way to see what was around them."_

"Really? How so?" She dropped one of her hands, and it thumped loudly against the arm of her chair. A chair that had not been there when she had first stood. Kat said nothing. Maura blinked. There was no way that this was not some form of an optical illusion. She could not have that type of power. Hell, she was not even completely certain if this place really existed. The woman's form wavered slightly before settling. Maura closed her eyes again, drawing in a deep breath to calm herself. She remembered the form in the mirror. The white one. The one that had almost taken her. "They bring people here. They bring them here, and then they kill them."

"_Yes."_

"I saw one, earlier. It came for me. It nearly took me. I was going to die."

"_Yes."  
__  
_"So how do I see you, instead?" There was a long silence, before Kat opened her mouth to speak.

"_There is a legend. It states that when all conditions are met, a Persona will appear from the soul." _Maura leaned back, envisioning her chair a little bit more comfortable. Strangely enough, it was.

"You are my Persona."

_"Yes."_

"Not long ago, I had nearly been killed by my shadow."

"_Yes." _Maura tapped her chin, trying to figure out what had changed. What these strange conditions were, that had to be met in order for her soul not to be hunted.

"Kat, what are the conditions?" It couldn't hurt to ask. And the Persona probably knew.

"_It varies from person to person. If you can not answer that, then I am not permitted the answer. When you no longer need to ask, is when you will know." _The statement itself felt a little repetitive, but Maura only nodded. "_It has to do with your soul feeling separated, I believe. I was... aware, when I changed to be that shadow._"

"I felt like I was coming apart. But that was... Because I was seeing..." Maura shot up, standing abruptly. "Kat, that woman, the one who was in here for three days, she died awhile ago. Didn't she."

"_Yes."_

"Kat, I saw it. I was there." The Persona spread her wings, head tilting curiously.

_"I have never heard such a thing through the whispering of the wind." _Maura smiled.

"But you have, Kat! What if we tried to see what was there? This, this place, it can't be separated for every person." She dropped her voice to a whisper. "What if we tried to see where the others were? To go there?"

"_It could be... Worth a try."_ The Persona ducked her head, drawing out two twin double- sided spears. "_I will fight for and protect you." _Maura nodded. She closed her eyes, imagining the scene that she had dreamt. Or not dreamt, since she had been here. In this strange world. _"I sense it."_ She did too. Opening her eyes, Maura gasped.

The world was completely different.

To begin with, it was not empty. She was standing on a strange surface, one that looked like glass, but wasn't. Up above was the most beautiful night sky, and it looked close enough for her to touch. Kat turned, surveying everything as if she had also never seen it before.

"Your world Kat, it is beautiful." The Persona looked up, and then down, and then over to Maura.

"_Yes. It is. And it is all thanks to you."_ Maura shook her head, looking back down at the floor. She then rolled her eyes. "_What is it?_"

"Mirrors, Kat. Its how everything travels here, I suppose. This one," she reached out, running her hand over one of them, the one with the strongest pull. "This is the one we have to go through." Kat nodded, and they dived.

The sensation was extremely strange, it was like falling through nothing, and then landing on one's feet as if they had only hopped, and not fallen some unspecified distance. Maura looked around, blinking. It looked like a normal house, anyone's house really. But there was something off about the stairs. There was blood on them. Maura blinked, before turning around again.

"_You will remember this place exactly, if you wish." _The ME raised an eyebrow, looking over to her persona, who was investigating over at the other side of the room. There was no way it could be that easy.

"What's the catch?"

"_All conditions must be met."__  
_

Nothing could _ever _be that easy.


	10. Chapter 10

Maura woke up. And she was actually comfortable. And she remembered every little detail of her dream. The arm around her waist tightened, and she tensed slightly, before recalling that too. She was with Jane. How much she would love to turn over and snuggle tighter against the rock- hard form that was her best friend encased Maura's mind briefly. And then she remembered that she had something she needed, and it would help Jane with the case.

Moving slowly, she reached across the short gap to her dresser, pulling open the top drawer. She knew she kept it in here, somewhere. Fishing around, Maura pulled out an older drawing pad, flipping to the center, where there were open pages. She then reached across for a pen. As she began sketching, the form behind her moved.

"Hey. What are you doing?" An arm braced on each side of her, and Maura could feel Jane's body pressed against her back, peering over her shoulder. The doctor shook her head slightly, focusing her attention on the piece before her. She erased and redrew the last section of the stairwell, shading in the bloody section. "Maur, what is that?"

"It has to do with her death." Her voice came out a low whisper, and she leaned back into Jane. Arms slid around her, tightening.

"Hey, I'm right here. You're okay."

"I know who's killing them." Jane's attention was grabbed by that, but tears had started migrating down Maura's cheeks. "You're going to think I'm insane."

"Maur, you are the sanest person I know. It can't sound that strange."

"Yes it can."

"No it can't." Maura turned, glaring at Jane, waiting. How could she word something like this? She didn't know how to tell the detective that shadows were killing their people. Or how to explain that the people were showing up aged.

"Their shadows are killing them." Jane was silent, for a very long time. Her eyes seemed to burn rhetorical holes in the paper that Maura had sketched on.

"I would ask what drugs you were on." Maura opened her mouth to answer none, when Jane shook her head, asking her to wait. "But I know you Maur. And I trust you. If you told me that shadows were killing people, then shadows are killing people." She leaned back, lacing her fingers behind her head as she did so. "Its just a little strange."

"I know. I didn't know what to believe when I saw it." Jane cocked an eyebrow.

"You saw it? You saw them die?" Maura shook her head, running a hand through her hair to pull it away from her face.

"Not exactly."

"Maura!"

"I saw them right before." That made Jane silent, and she waited. The doctor had to organize her own thoughts, before they could come out in the way she wanted them to. "You see, there is this place. And its where a person's shadow lives. And this shadow, when it gets angry, it can pull its person inside through a mirror, and then can kill them by jumping into the person. Jane, please don't think I'm nuts. I know it sounds really strange but-"

"Maur, how did you find this out?" The doctor chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, before shutting her eyes.

"Mine came for me yesterday." The moment of fear in Jane's eyes was quickly hidden, the tense in her arms only apparent to one who knew Jane as well, or better, than they knew themselves. Maura caught both movements, her own form tensing. She reached out, ran her fingers over the muscular forearm. "I'm still here, Jane. I'm okay."

"How."

"I shot the mirror?" The detective opened her mouth to retort, before laughing. Maura smiled slightly.

"Good one, Maur! That was actually funny!" She pushed a piece of hair that had fallen across the medical examiner's eyes away, gaze darkening. "But seriously. How were you not taken?"

"I... I met all conditions. So instead of a shadow, I met my Persona." Jane tilted her head, curious. But she remained silent. "Its like, a hidden piece of your soul that comes out and talks to you and stuff. She told me that I can only see her because I had met all conditions, and my shadow was sated. In a more round- a- bout way."

"What are your conditions?"

"I don't know. She couldn't tell me because it changes for every person and she didn't know mine. She said I would have to figure it out and that, at that moment they had been fulfilled." Jane nodded, understanding. It was something that Maura had found she could always count on; Jane's patience and understanding, especially when it came to her. The fact that Jane was trying to understand and comprehend something that Maura herself barely had a hold on made the doctor's heart swell. "Oh, shit."

"Maur, did you just curse?" The dorky smile on Jane's face made the ME blush, covering her face with her hands. "Maur, what happened? What did you figure out?"

"One of my conditions." The statement was muffled, and the detective reached up, pulling on the doctor's wrists to see her face.

"What is it?" Maura shook her head.

"You are definitely going to think I need to be admitted into an asylum."

"Maura Isles, you just told me that shadows are killing people by pulling them through mirrors." Jane began, raising her eyebrows. "You then told me that you met a piece of your soul that is called a persona, when all conditions are met. However, you have met your conditions once, and you don't even know what they are." Maura tried to look away, but Jane made her gaze stay focused. "You tell me that a shadow almost killed you. And I believe you. I will always believe you."

"But this is just plain weird." Jane exhaled, frustrated.

"Maur, you drew a house's stairwell, and told me it tied into the most recent death. I am planning to take this picture to Korzak, and tell him that it can help."

"Am I an anonymous source? I don't wish for him to blame any more of this on me, especially not with how scientifically ridiculous it all sounds." Jane's eyebrow twitched.

"Yes you will be anonymous, since he won't let you into the autopsy lab and your techs? They all suck!"

"Language, Jane!"

"Maura Isles, stop distracting me and tell me the condition!"

"You!"

The silence that followed was deafening, and Maura's hand shot up to her mouth. She hadn't meant for it to come out, and definitely not like that.

"Oh." Yea, that was how Maura felt too.

"Jane, I-"

"What do you need me to do?" Maura paused, thinking about the question. Asking Jane to jump her probably wouldn't go over so well with the detective, nor would asking the detective if she, Maura Isles, could jump her. So what did she really need? Yes, she wanted to tell Jane that she loved her, that she had for so long and just couldn't admit it to herself. But that wasn't what she needed. "I'd do anything to keep you safe, Maur."

"Just... stay with me. Please." Jane nodded, lacing her fingers around the doctor's waist once again, pulling her back down into the comforting shoulder.

"Anything." Her phone rang, and she reached for it, answering. "Rizzoli." Pause. "Korzak, really, I-" Maura's eyes flicked to the sketch pad, and then back to Jane. She nodded slightly. "Look, I got a clue about her." Another pause. "Its for me to know and you to not find out." Another pause, where Maura couldn't help but grin. "What part of Anonymous source do you not understand, Korzak?"


	11. Chapter 11

"Persona. Katapolemi Kardia." The being all but exploded from within Maura, and she grinned slightly at the thought that she could call this piece of her without a mirror. Then the grin faded, and she thought up a comfortable couch for herself, and stretched out across it.

"_You are getting good at this."_

"Thank you. The amount of practice we do helps." The persona nodded, before looking out over the landscape. "Kat... Jane is one of my conditions. I know that. But... the others..."

"_You said it to Jane, a few weeks ago."_ Maura blushed, leaning her head on her hand. "_You recall the words."_

"I have to be true to myself. Which is why these conditions change for every person."

_"Yes." _Maura waved her hand in front of a fading- edge mirror, the scenes inside it changing.

"I do not understand everything that I want. Is that why being with Jane is enough for me?"

"_Could it not be that simply being with Jane is enough in itself?" _Maura nodded. Being with Jane was always more than enough. She felt as though she was a complete person when she was with the rowdy detective. Nothing else seemed to really matter, as long as Jane was there.

"Its been hard for her. She's been catching hell from Korzak, because they can find where the person who's been murdered has been, and Jane has told me that they did have a problem..."

"_Abigail was being beaten by her husband, the other victims lying to themselves more than once about various things."_

"I wish we had a way to know who was next, Kat. Or a way to save them." She waved her hand in front of the edgeless mirror again, watching as she and Kat ran through what appeared to be a house, fighting shadows left and right, being unable to save the person and watching him die. He had been the first male victim, and the first that Maura had tried to save. It had not worked out so well.

But Jane had been there, to comfort her when she cried. Not that she had told Jane how badly she had really failed; that Orion had died the same way as the others because she was neither fast nor strong enough.

_"There is no pattern, only lies."_ The persona whispered. Maura nodded. She would have to find out who was lying. And she would have to do it quickly. She brought her hand up, ready to close it, to wake herself up. She could pretty much see this world when she wanted now, as long as Jane was with her, and her other variously unknown conditions were met. And she was getting good at controlling this world, making it easier to go wherever she needed, whenever. And she could call her Persona at will, of course. "_With love in your heart, keep_ _fighting._"

* * *

As soon as the vision had shattered, Maura stretched and woke. She turned her head slightly, gazing adoringly at the detective resting there. She wondered what it would be like to truly love this woman, and then banished the thoughts just as quickly from her mind. Maura reached over to the bedside table, grasping on to the folder that had been balanced on top of Maura's clock. She flipped through the pictures, each paper clipped together with which victim they had corresponded to.

She had drawn them all.

It hurt to know that she had been unable to save twelve people, since Kat had awakened. Tears came to her eyes, as she read over the list of names. Every third day, a body showed up, and another went missing. The Boston police force was taking more hits than it could have afforded. Korzak's nerves were being fried, and he was taking it out on his officers. Jane was taking hits and swallowing the emotional pain as if nothing was wrong. And Maura was failing in the dream- like world of shadows. She choked back her sob.

"Don't cry. Please." The soft hand that ran up over her back made Maura almost want to cry more. "Its not your fault. You're doing your best, and I believe that."

"I failed. More than once. I've been failing this entire time, Jane!"

"I could have lost you once, Maur. When I wasn't here. Because I thought nothing was wrong. If you hadn't shot that mirror, it would have been you, not Orion on that table." Jane's voice dropped to a dark whisper. "I had failed you. And I swore to you that I would never fail you. That I would do anything to keep you safe."

"That wasn't your fault."

"You sound like me now." Maura blushed, realizing the point that Jane had made. "What do I need to do to help you find out more from Kat?"

"Well, she told me that no one has been taken since the last... Victim." Emilia, the mail carrier for the police department. She shook the thoughts out of her head before she could think about how badly she had failed that rescue attempt also. She just couldn't do this saving the people thing right. "She said there was no pattern, only lies."

"And the fact that all of them are tied to the Boston Police department in some way, shape, or form." Maura nodded. "Maur, go see your horse today. Spend the day with Nat. Get your mind off of this. I'll see who's lying for you in the department."

"But-"

"Maur, don't argue. You need a break. Its all getting to you." She should have said that it was getting to Jane too. She should have brought up that Jane was just as in need of a break as all the rest of Boston PD. But she didn't. Maura Isles forgot to analyze every thought, every little detail. She passed over them, agreeing with Jane. Because she wanted it all to stop. She wanted all of this to be over. She needed it to be over. She needed it to be over for Jane's sake.

"Alright. But you take it easy at work, alright?" Jane grinned, nodding.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine.

* * *

"You're riding like you have a hot date tonight!" Nat called out from across the arena. Maura couldn't help but grin brilliantly. "Is Jane sleeping with you again?"

"You say it like there is something more going on than there actually is. Woah, Winter." The stallion slid, ducking in as he pounded the ground with his front legs.

"Awe, I'm sorry. How is her job going, by the way? You haven't spoken about it." Maura shook her head.

"No leads. Not that I expected any. Korzak is under pressure so its effecting them all." Nat only nodded, bringing her mare up to a low cross- rail and cuing her to jump over it. "Pick up a bit of a faster pace, then come around again. She needs a little bit more than that." Nat tried again, and Maura nodded. She walked Winter to the pvc plastic rails, hooking one with her foot and lifting it in order to hook it on a higher jump cup. "Keep her in hand, but don't slow her down too much for this." It was only about two foot and a couple inches, but Maura liked to start low when she taught Nat, and raise the fences as they went on.

"How is she holding up?"

"She says she's fine." Nat raised an eyebrow, loping a circle before she headed towards the fence. Maura followed, steering Winter with one hand as she ran a hand through her hair.

"Could she be lying?"

"Its too dangerous with this case." Nat only nodded, tightening her turns between fences, counting strides out loud. Maura slowed, raising the fences again, to roughly three foot. "Take this one, and then the double, right turn to the skinny and then left to the bending line followed by the coup. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and Maura pointed out the course, dropping her reins as she answered. "Isles."

"Maur, I think it might be Kozak." Maura blinked, holding up her hand to tell Nat to tighten the turn and moving her shoulders to demonstrate what she needed to change about her position.

"What?"

"You heard me Maur. I think Korzak might be next. he is in... a lot of denial." She ran a hand through her hair again, sighing.

"Jane, I don't know. I haven't been able to... Save anyone. It won't be any different now. I can't do it."

"Yes you can Maur. I believe in you. That's what matters. Believe in yourself too." Nat pulled up, walking in near to Maura. She held out her hand, and the doctor slid hers into the child's. She had a feeling that tears were sliding down her cheeks.

"I'll try Jane. I've been trying ever since she woke, but... Jane, I've been failing." Maura felt Nat squeeze her hand, and gripped tightly to it for a brief second.

"You won't fail Maur. I know it. I've got to get back to work now, though. Okay?" Maura nodded, then realized that Jane couldn't see that.

"Take it easy, okay?" She barely choked the words out, running her knuckles over Winter's mane.

"Yea, I'm fine Maur. I'll be up later. I promise."

"See you then." Maura closed her phone, slipping it back into the open space of her boot. Nat rested her other hand over Maura's, both of hers casing the older woman's. "She thinks it might be Korzak. I can't save them, I haven't been able to save any of them. I'm always too late."

"Hey it'll be-"

"Natasha, don't you dare lie. Those who lie to themselves are the basis for this case." The younger girl smirked.

"Maura, I've been lying since I was nine. I've accepted that though, so I'm not lying to myself." Maura tilted her head, thinking about the girl's words.

"Just everyone else."

"Oh, not everyone. I don't lie to you." Maura couldn't help but smile at that. "Hey, if you need me, you just call, alright?" Maura nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

"Alright, I totally missed the last half of your jump course. Go do it again."

"No way in Hell, it was beautiful. I'll raise them to four- six, and you can go do your own course, thank you." Maura smirked, shaking her head at the girl. She would have to talk to Jane about this all later, but right now she had to focus on the task at hand. She could worry about saving people tomorrow.


	12. Chapter 12

"_There is someone here."_

Maura woke up from her nap, glancing at the clock. Ten thirty- seven. At night. She looked over to the television, which she had forgotten to turn off before she fell asleep. Why hadn't Jane come home by now?She fished around under her pillow for her phone; no missed calls. Where was she? She hit her speed dial and listened as it rang, ultimately going to voice mail. She called again. And then a third time. Then she called Korzak.

"Hullo? What the hell, Isles, why are you-"

"Where's Jane?" The voice on the other end coughed, before it came back on.

"She left the department two hours ago, saying she was going up by you. She should have arrived an hour and fifty minutes ago." Maura's phone slid from her hand. The color drained from her face, and she turned as pale as the sheets on her guest bed; which were, indeed, white. "Maura? Maura, what happened? Did she not arrive?" Maura scrambled for her phone, sprinting up the stairs and tossing her pistol into her purse, before running back down.

"Korzak, has anyone tried to call her?"

"Frost did, said she didn't answer. Figured she was with you." Maura swallowed, tears coming to her eyes as she knocked on the guest house door. She could hear Angela shuffling downstairs, swallowing the bile that had risen in her throat.

"Korzak, she never got here." The silence on the other end of the line was enough to tell the medical examiner that he understood what she was saying.

"Meet me at the PD in ten minutes." He hung up, as did she. The guest door opened, and Angela opened her mouth to speak to Maura when she noticed the tears. The blonde shook her head, sobbing. She dialed Nat's number, waiting until the girl answered. What she had to say was for both of them.

"Jane's been taken."

* * *

Maura stepped into the Boston commonwealth, her steps echoing. Nat had one had looped through her elbow, a comforting presence. She directed both Angela Rizzoli and the girl into the elevator, jamming the button that would take them down to autopsy. Tears streamed slowly, quietly, down her cheeks. How could she possibly get to the world without Jane? How could she do anything without Jane? She had failed saving people, failed every time.

She was going to fail Jane.

She stepped out, pulling her Doctor's cloak around her shoulders as all of the lights snapped on with a resounding, electrifying buzz.

"Bonum Domina Athena, nisi animae." Nat whispered, her grip on Maura's elbow tightening for a brief moment as the doctor began to pull body covers off left and right.

"Say what?" Angela whispered, unable to comprehend the language.

"Good Lady Athena, save our souls." The girl repeated, following Maura as she stepped around, checking charts.

"God damn it, Jane was right. My techs suck!" Maura exclaimed, looking over charts and tags. "Korzak, why the Hell did you kick me off this?" The other two spun around, never having noticed that the older detective had joined them.

"Because you were wrong, Isles! There has to be a cause of death!" The doctor whirled, glaring at him through unshed, glassy tears.

"Its severe aging, Korzak! As its been this. Entire. Time!." He pulled out the file, slapping it down on the table, as Maura pushed away one of the many gurneys set up here for bodies. Her techs really had no organizational skills whatsoever.

"Jane had been coming up with these, from some 'anonymous source', Isles! This was obviously more complex than you thought!"

"I've seen them before, Korzak! I know exactly how complex this fucker of a case is!" Nat's head turned, and she smirked. The damn girl was just like Jane; proud of the doctor for letting a curse slip.

"There is no way you saw them, Isles! They had just been given to me and-"

"Bullshit Korzak! I drew them!" The silence that enveloped them was deafening. "Yea." She let her tone be coated in a layer of sarcasm. "I was that source, Korzak. You were wrong. And now Jane is missing because of it."

"Maura…" She moved over to the side of the room, unlocking her office and going through multiple vials of various medical concoctions.

"Wait, you can draw?" Frost threw in, his face all scrunched up in an expression that screamed confusion.

"Jane is missing, and going to die, and you're worried about whether or not I can draw?" Maura growled, dumping a measured amount of chemicals into a beaker and mixing.

"Bad timing, huh Maura?" The cop chided, trying to watch as she mixed a little bit more. "So what do we do to save her?"

"The other world, the one where Jane is right now, getting her ass kicked by her shadow, needs to be infiltrated." Using a dropper, she placed a measured amount onto a testing strip, glaring at it through the microscope. She huffed, shaking her head and dumping the chemical, before starting again.

"You know about the other world?" Korzak asked, incredulous. The doctor glared at him. "Right… You drew those."

"I plan to go, and send her back here. I don't know how, but I will figure something out." She dropped this one on the plate, glaring at it carefully.

"So you'll just go to this other place?" Maura nodded, transferring the mixture to a slow- drip injection bag. "Why aren't you, I don't know, going to sleep or something?"

"Because I haven't been able to sleep without Jane, Korzak." She withdrew a package from her cabinets, drawing out a syringe, and pouring the rest into it.

"Maura, what are you planning?" The police sergeant cried out.

"Frost, you will go to my place. Just in case she shows up. Korzak, you to-"

"Doctor Isles, you do not call the shots around here!" She turned, glaring at him.

"I do now, Vince. Get used to it." He pursed his lips, but said nothing. "You go to her apartment." Maura glanced at Jane's mother, who was sobbing silently in the corner. She reached into her bag, withdrawing Jane's spare pistol, the one that she normally kept beneath her pillow. She checked the load on it, before resetting the safety. She held the grip out to Nat. "Ever used one of these before?"

"Of course." Maura leaned back on the table, nodding to her as she undid the catch, sighting down the barrel briefly.

"You'll tell me why later."

"Of course." The child answered. "And I won't lie about it."

"What are you doing, Isles, that you need someone here, armed? What the hell is going on!"

"I told you. I'm going to get Jane." She pressed on the back of the syringe until just a bit came out, whipping the end with alcohol. "I suggest you get a move on. Go. Now." The two detectives paused, before nodding slightly.

"Careful Maura." Frost whispered, turning and striding out the door, pushing Korzak in front of him. Maura slid the injection into her arm, tears welling in her eyes once again. Angela reached out, holding her arm.

"Nat." The girl nodded, looking towards her. "Midazolam mixed with Fentanyl. Three hours." She slid the IV drip into her left arm, gesturing towards the back room with her eyes. "Life support is back there."

"Maura, I know I've been trained to work in a bone lab, but-"

"Nat, you can do it. I trust you." The girl closed her mouth, nodding. "The ventilators are on the… left, everything you need should be there. Heart monitors on the bottom shelf, in the boxes." She closed her eyes, sighing. "If you need… Anything else… Its organized. You'll find it." Maura felt Angela's hand slipping into hers, and squeezed weakly. Frankie paced back and forth, his own gun drawn. "And hey, Nat. Do me a favor."

"Anything, Maura."

"Si me non possum surgere nisi." The doctor sighed, and Nat rubbed her eyes. Angela glanced at her, eyebrow raised.

"She..." Nat let her own tears fall, shaking her head. Angela reached her hand acrosstaking the girl's. "She said to not wake her up if Jane doesn't come back."


	13. Chapter 13

_"_Persona. Katapolemi Kardia." The soul from Maura sparkled, forming in front of her. But different. She was fuzzy, not really there while being there.

_"I did not realize." _Maura's eyes narrowed, and she nodded.

"Nor did I." She reached out to touch Kat, something she had done many times before. Her hand went through the Persona. "Kat, what is wrong with you?"

"_Conditions. You are going around them. Fighting. Fightning inside."_

_"_Fighting myself." She finished. Closing her eyes, Maura reopened them, steeling herself. "I need to find Jane." She held out her hand, the weight of a pistol forming in it. She turned to glance at the fuzzy persona, noticing that she was more solid now. "I can not fail, Kat. We will not fail."

"_That is what I like to hear."_Maura nodded, waving her hand over the mirror- like place.

"I need Jane." She whispered, looking through the edgeless mirrors that rose up around her. "Kat-"

"_This one." _The Persona pointed, and the doctor nodded, envisioning the weapon was loaded. They stepped through, the world around them changing. Maura envisioned her helmet bracing down over her face, much like Kat's was. "_Many things could happen here. Are you prepared?"_

_"_No. But I will do this anyway." She paused, before holding out her other hand, calling forth a second pistol. "Kat, if we fail, I refuse to wake up."

"_I know."_

* * *

Nat glanced over to the clock, before looking to the bag that held chemicals; anesthesia she was familiar with. Angela stroked Maura's hair from her eyes, leaning on one elbow.

"One hour down." Frankie whispered, and Nat nodded, stepping up to the constantly beeping monitors. She knew this wasn't going to go too well. And she dreaded it. She dreaded all of what she would do, all of what she promised Maura. The door opened, and Nat raised her gun to the tech that came in, eyes wide.

"I- I'm here to work the case and-" He looked down to Maura's still form, to the two guns now raised to him.

"Morgue's closed today." Nat stated brightly, and the guy nodded, looking at the body before nodding more vigorously. he backed up, hitting his back against the wall as he groped around for the door handle. "Pleasure meeting you!" He nodded again, turning and sprinting down the hall. "Frankie, lock the damn door."

"As you say, ma'am." They were quiet for a moment.

"Would you really do it, Natasha?" Angela whispered. The girl took her seat across from the elder woman, looking down to someone who, despite the age difference, had always been there for her. She nodded. "But-"

"She would never forgive me, if I didn't. More importantly though..." Nat raised her eyes to meet Jane's mother's gaze. "She would never forgive herself."

* * *

Maura ducked, rolling. She lifted both arms and fired, two shots, an entire clip. They dropped around her, and Maura pointed for Kat to dive into the next section, spinning her dual spears in each hand. Maura sprinted after, pressing her back up against the door as she did so.

"_This is one hell of a world for a human to create for herself."_

"Kat, that is exactly what I was thinking." She turned around another corner, prepared for another onslaught.

"_She is a strong soul." _The ME smiled softly, reloading just in case. "_I understand why you like her so much."_

_"_Yes." She lacked anything else to say. They turned another corner, looking into another identical hallway. "Kat, we are getting absolutely nowhere."

_"So then envision us getting somewhere."_

* * *

"Two hours." Nat reached over, reseting the counters on everything. She then fished around in Maura's purse.

"Its rude to look through someone's purse." Angela told her, mouth agape. "It breaks girl code!"

"I need her phone. I'm calling Frost. I don't think she'll mind." The older Rizzoli bobbed her head to the side, agreeing with the miniature version of a non- google- speaking, red haired, Maura Isles. Whop could use a gun and threaten people like a miniature Jane Rizzoli. The girl had a point. She scrolled through the contacts, finally dialing. "How's everything holding up?"

"Maura's turtle scared the piss out of me when I walked in." The dark skinned agent shouted over the phone.

"Tortoise. She'd get all pissy if she heard you call him a turtle."

"Maura gets pissy?" Nat rolled her eyes, glaring at the phone with a sarcastic expression.

"Answer the damn question."

"I'm bored out of my mind, chilling out with a turtle, feeding him strawberries that appear to be from Britain. Does that sound like Jane showed up in a cloud of sparkly dust?"

"He's a fucking tortoise!" She slammed the phone down on the table, hanging up. Angela raised an eyebrow.

"You are much too young and innocent to be yelling the f- bomb at the top of your lungs." Nat smirked.

"You know what Maura would tell me?" At Angela's grin, they both couldn't help but laugh out the words.

"Language, Jane!"

* * *

"How am I supposed to envision us going somewhere? This is Jane's world, not mine!"

_"Make it yours!" _The persona yelled, in her crackly, unrealistic voice. Her form wavered briefly again. As she flickered, Maura's eyes narrowed. How was she lying to herself? All she had said was…

"The world is all illusion, Kat." The ME grinned, shaking her head. "It can be broken, and seen through." Kat nodded, her form becoming solid again.

"_I'm surprised it took you this long to figure that piece out."_

"You were not being very helpful, I must admit." Maura shut her eyes. "I need to see past the mazes." The sound of breaking glass had her ducking for cover, feeling iron guards as Kat threw herself around the woman. They stayed like that, until it stopped. "Is it over?"

"_I believe so. Now where to-"_

"No! It's not true! None of it is true!" Maura sprang up, feeling her persona take to the sky above her. It was Jane. She would know that strangled cry anywhere. Maura's heels slid on the mirror- like surface as she tried to stop, Kat hovering just to her right, above her. There was a glass wall, blocking their way. "Kat-"

"_You can't."_

_"_I can't leave her there!" Maura pressed her hands against the glass, guns holstered into her sash- style belt. She was crying, watching as Jane tried to get away from a shadow that stalked her every move, knew every inner secret of her soul.

"_You can not, Maura Isles!"_

"To hell I can 'not' do this! I will save her!" Their gazes locked.

"_You'll be on your own." _She whispered. "_You'll lose me." _Another pause. "_You'll lose yourself."_

"I know." They slid through the glass, until Maura was blocking Jane from her own shadow, reaching out to grip Kat's hand.

"_You are a stupid woman, thinking you can save her from herself." _Shadow Jane whispered, slithering back in its fake form.

"That may very well be true, I can't say any different." She felt Kat lower her head, respectfully. They both knew what this would ultimately come to. They, perhaps, should have even expected it. "Who released all of you? Who is behind all of this?"

"_You are. You are our controller. This is entirely your fault." _Maura shut her eyes, dropping both her weapons on the ground, watching as they disappeared. "_You have enjoyed being able to hold this amount of power over them… You enjoy knowing that this is your doing. You love the fact that you are the one causing these people to die. You have been killing them, Maura Isles. It has been you all along." _Maura smiled, a small, graceful, gentle smile.

"I know. I give myself to you."

Katapolemi Kardia exploded, but she never once wavered.


	14. Chapter 14

"Two hours, fifty five minutes, thirty seven seconds." Frankie whispered, tensing. Nat twitched, trying to remain still. Trying to keep hold on Maura's hand and not cry. Less than four minutes to go.

The machines exploded with noise around her, and she all but fell off of her chair with surprise. Angela sprang up in the same instant, Nat turning to the life monitors that she had spent all of her time setting up and watching.

"What does it mean? What's going on?" The mother asked, as Nat's eyes widened, shaking her head.

"No! No, no, no! Maura, no!" She pointed over her shoulder to the machines that she had pulled out just in case. "I need the one with the full mask, and the throat tube maybe. Frankie! Find me another needle, and fill one of the IV bags with fluid. Preferably salene. Purified water if you can absolutely not find anything else."

"What the hell is going on?" They both asked her, as the phone started ringing beside the girl's elbow. She completely ignored it, counting as she compressed the woman's chest, leaning forward to reach shock pads she had also gotten out of the back as a precaution. She couldn't answer them, she was already gone; in that space of mind where it was just her and the body. She never heard herself scream.

"Maura, DON'T YOU FUCKING DIE ON ME!"

* * *

In a morgue. That was where she was. In a familiar, perfectly organized morgue. She had come to work this morning, expecting only one body, and that of a middle aged man who had a gunshot wound to his left femoral artery and seemed to have died from suffocation.

Doctor Maura Isles sat up at her desk, the current fashion accessories lit up on the back of her computer. Why had she started shopping in the middle of an investigation? She couldn't remember. But oh, was that pair of stilettos gorgeous. She could ignore that body for five minutes more, couldn't she? Yes, of course she could. She was chief medical examiner of Boston Commonwealth, for God's sake. She could do whatever she wanted, which was, at the present moment; go shopping for a new pair of shoes for her new boy toy.

Wait. This was all wrong.

Maura stood. None of this was as it should have been. This was not her morgue, and not her case, and damn it, not her office. A white form drifted off to her left, and she whirled around. What was it? Where had it gone?

"Tag, you're it!" The child cried, giggling as she ran down the hall of Maura's own mansion. Hold on, pause. Hadn't she just been in the damn morgue? What the hell was going on? "Catch me if you can!" Maura dropped her coat, chasing after the giggling voice.

"I was waiting for you, dear." Maura turned again at the voice, trying to locate it. A woman was sitting there, her face obscured by a cloak that she wore tight around herself. "Come and sit, have some tea and speak with an old stranger you have never known." Maura nodded, walking slowly to sit across from the woman. There were only two chairs, and two cups, already poured. "I know you prefer only one sugar in your tea. Here you are, sweetheart."

"Thank you." The doctor ventured, confused. "How did you know?" She took a sip, and realized it was good.

"Well, I take it the same way of course." Maura just nodded. None of this was helping her at all with figuring out what she was doing, or where she was. She took another sip, before placing the cup on the saucer gently.

"May I ask you a question, ma'am?"

"Why of course you may darling. What can I help you with?" Maura rested her head on her elbow, pursing her lips.

"I'm not really sure. I can't remember."

"Hm, what a shame. May I ask your name then?" She nodded, opening her mouth to answer. When she couldn't remember. She rested her hands on the table, dropping her head on top of them. What was going on? She knew she was someone, knew she had a name, and an age, and a job. A child laughed, and her eyes snapped open.

"Come on, you have to catch me!" The blonde woman rose, chasing after the voice again, searching valiantly.

"Who the hell are you?" This voice she recognized, as if it was someone familiar. The tall, honey- blonde woman glared at her with hazel eyes that were shaded. "Who gave you permission to come into my space? I didn't, so you should not be here!" She took a step back, a gun pointed at her. She raised her hands to her head. This was all too much. She couldn't figure this all out at once.

"Just think about it, dear." The old woman looked at her with eyes she couldn't quite see. No, they were hazel. And her hair looked like it had been honey blonde, once. "Take your time. Think about it, and don't rush."

"You're me. And I'm you."

"Hehe! You figured it out!" The child- like voice exclaimed. She turned, glancing at the blonde haired, green eyed child.

"You shouldn't have run from her, you brat." The bitchy blonde stated, spitting her gum to the side as ungracefully as she could.

"You're all me." Maura whispered. The child smiled, attaching herself to her hip in a death- grip like hug. The middle- aged one smirked, nodding before she picked up a beer, taking a giant gulp from it.

"And who are you dear?" The elderly woman asked, from beneath her sheltering cloak.

"Maura Isles." She had a feeling that they were all grinning. That she had unraveled some massive mystery that had killed so many other people. "I'm Maura Isles, and I work for Boston PD, I'm the medical examiner. Right?" The middle one flicked her eyes upwards.

"We all knew that already." She sighed out. And Maura grinned. "Thank you, captain obvious."

"Where are we?" Maura found herself asking, trying to remember a case that was on the edge of her memory. The three of her shrugged, tilting their heads to the side.

"My dear, that is the wrong question to ask." The elderly her stated, placing her tea cup down and refilling it.

"You should ask what we're going to do about it!" The little one cried; arms around Maura's neck.

"What do you mean?" The middle one leaned forward.

"Listen. You, right now, are lying on a table in a morgue, dying. You're here because-"

"I gave myself up for Jane." She whispered. "I sedated myself to save Jane, and then gave myself up for her."

"You split your soul, dear." Maura nodded, looking down at the table. She looked up, face grim, a moment later.

"Right. So what do we do about it?" The other three of her smiled; even her bitchy doppelganger. Maura tilted her head to the side. She knew the answer already.

"The hall of mirrors."


	15. Chapter 15

Frost looked up, thinking that the banging had been Bass. He pulled out his gun none the less, walking towards the stairs. Something else banged, and the turtle looked up at him.

"Sh, I think its Bass upstairs, buddy." Frost took one step, before looking back at the turtle. "Bass... If you were sitting next to me, who the hell is upstairs?" The turtle tilted his head at the cop, as a door opened. "Hide in your shell, Honorary Detective Tortoise Buddy! I'll take point!" The tortoise shrunk his head inside, Frost jumping up the stairs, three at a shouldered through the door, shock and surprise lighting his face when he got there. "Holy shit, you're back!"

* * *

Maura stepped in, the child humming a bright tune quietly to herself. Her angry doppelganger stood behind her, eyes casting about in every direction at once. They stood, finally, in front of a decorative archway.

"There's no turning back once we go through." The doppelganger whispered. She looked at Maura who nodded.

"I thought one of us disappeared when we go through…"

"No." The two older ones stated, cutting off the youngest. Maura looked to all of them, shaking her head.

"What do I have to do in there?" Maura whispered.

"You have to confront yourself and your shadow. That is all we know." The doppelganger Maura whispered, grinning slightly. "I have a feeling you'll do fine." Maura nodded, and the four of them stepped through.

* * *

"Come on, Maura!" Nat growled, running a hand through her hair, nervous. She heard the door slide open, and whirled, aiming her gun to the door. "Fuck you, this is not the goddamn time! I told you the fucking morgue was closed and-"

"Relax! I brought-" Frost stopped. His gun clattered to the floor, and he couldn't find the words to say.

"Let me in the fucking door, Frost!" Jane shoved, stepping in only two steps. Her hair was caked with sweat, blood, sticking out in every direction. And she looked as if she hadn't slept in days. Her clothes were little more than rags, when Angela rose. The elder woman was still gripping Maura's hand in her own.

"What the fuck happened." Jane spit the words not as a question, but as an accusation. Her gun was pointed towards the girl, her eyes flicking to the medical examiner.

"Jane Clementine Rizzoli, you put that gun down right now." The door opened again, Korzak rushing through.

"I heard she got back alright and- oh hell." Nat scrunched up her face, trying not to cry again. "When did it happen?"

"Fifteen minutes ago." Frost swallowed.

"Right when I heard Jane appear." The female detective dropped her gun, stepping beside the medical examiner.

"You gave yourself up for me, didn't you." She whispered. She took Nat's chair, tucking her hands around Maura's. "You have to wake up Maur. You're strong enough to confront your shadow, Maur. You have to."

* * *

It was a room of mirrors. An endless room of mirrors. With weird voices, echoing… Echoing… Coming from every direction. She looked around, and then contemplated closing her eyes. It was strange, to look at a mirror and see yourself. But not really. Well, she saw herself, but at different times in her life. Memories. All of them.

"Don't ignore the voices dear."

"Or the pretty pictures!" Maura turned to the child, smiling. She then turned to the old woman.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, dear, listen to what they are saying. Listen to the questions beneath the words. The one voice that is us and not anyone else." Maura nodded, when the child tugged on her skirt and asked to be picked up. The old Maura sipped the tea that she had brought with her; a cup that was constantly refilling itself. Maura closed her eyes for a brief moment. And then she looked into one of the closest mirrors.

_"Maura- the- bora!" They all shouted. _She looked away, wiping her eyes. The old one put a hand on her shoulder.

"_You liked the attention they gave you." _Maura spun, trying to locate the voice. "_But you hated the people. You wished they would all die. You wished they would die, so that you could analyze them, and pick at every little detail like they did to you. You wanted the attention, but you hated them all." _Maura looked to the older version of herself, frightened. But she couldn't see the woman's face.

"Yes." She finally whispered to herself. "I wished they would all be dead, because the dead don't judge you." She wiped another tear from her cheek. "I didn't always want to be alone, to be the odd one out. I wanted to have friends. I wanted to be liked." The older Maura slid her bony hand into the slightly younger one's, nodding. They could hear a strange noise, when the mirror that had been right before them exploded.


	16. Chapter 16

More shattered. Maura couldn't help the smile that came to her face as more mirrors shattered. The old Maura looked at her, nodding again and taking a sip.

"We're getting somewhere, dear." She stated, and Maura herself nodded to that. She then looked behind herself, looking for the doppelganger Maura.

"Where is-"The old woman raised the porcelain cup to her lips, face cold. Not that Maura could see the stone- like expression, but she could feel it.

"This whole world is one old legend, my dear. Let us leave it that way." Maura just nodded. She had lost one piece of herself, but it didn't truly feel gone. Not yet at least. She walked further, listening as the voice told her things she so badly wanted to deny. She gripped onto her younger form, holding tight to both who she was, and who she would be.

* * *

Nat swapped out another saline bag, taking the one that had been previously hooked up to the sink to wash and sterilize. The men all stood leaning up against the wall, guns drawn. None of them knew what to do, how to help.

"You think we should-"

"Don't you dare say what you are thinking Vince Korsak, I will skin you alive." Jane whispered, pointing at him. He turned back to the clip of his gun; one that had not been clean enough for the past two hours.

"Do you guys mind leaving? Please?" The detective heard Nat ask, there were other words exchanged, before the door slid open again. "You too, Angela, please?" Jane's mother nodded, rising as if she had aged tremendously within the past few hours. Nat took a seat across from Jane, waiting for a moment before she spoke again. "She asked me to do something, if she didn't come back." Jane didn't look up to her, didn't inquire. She just expected the girl to continue. "She asked me to make sure she didn't wake up if you didn't come home." Jane shifted, letting her eyes meet the girls.

"I need you to do something for me that you've done for Maura before. I need you to forget to listen." Nat nodded, rising again to step towards the door. "Oh and Nat, she'll be back."

"I believe you." The girl went over near the sliding door, waiting. Jane watched her for a minute, before leaning forward, mouth beside Maura's ear.

"Hey Maur, I denied something in that dream world. And I think I should have told you what it was. So here goes Maur, something I think you have to hear. Because you have to come back. You have to come back to me."

* * *

So many mirrors shattered, and so many more. Maura sighed, finally putting the younger version of herself down, but keeping her hand held tightly.

"It is getting desperate." The older Maura whispered, sipping her tea, before finally throwing her cup into the mirror- filled oblivion. "Time to get down to business." Maura raised an eyebrow, nearly laughing at herself as an old woman.

"Let it come and find me." She hissed, and the child smiled, grinning broadly from ear to ear.

"_You want Jane."_ Maura stopped. The largest part of her she had tried to ignore.

"How the hell do you know me so well?" She growled, glaring up into the blank sky. "Tell me that."

"_You can't live without her, can't do anything… Maura Isles is useless without Jane Rizzoli. Maura Isles should just give up and die…" _How quickly tears had come to her eyes, Maura could not believe. How could she face something she could barely understand? She was a woman, and Jane was a woman, and nothing about them was compatible. She couldn't be with Jane, she didn't stand a chance.

Maura bent one knee, the shadow was right. The child flickered, the old woman sparkling as she began to disappear. The shadow was right. She never stood a chance with Jane. She had been kidding herself. Jane would never like her. Never.

"_Maur, something I think you have to hear. Because you have to come back."_ She was imagining everything. She was kidding herself that she could have ever been the one for Jane, that she could have ever been a hero. She was Maura- the Bora, Queen of the Dead. She was that socially awkward bitch no one cared about. "_You have to come back to me."_

_"Yes. You are useless. You could never love Jane, and she could never love you." _The voice hissed. She could feel everything pushing down on her. The shadow was always right.

"_I couldn't accept what I was told Maur. I couldn't accept I had a chance with you. That I couldn't live without you." _Jane's voice… Jane was torturing her. She rested her head on her hands, tears wetting her cheeks for hopefully the last time. "_I couldn't accept that I love you Maura. And that's why you have to come back. Because if you don't…"_

_"Don't listen to her." _The shadow hissed. "_Stop listening to what she tells you. Its all a lie. All a painful lie. She would never love you. You're dying on that table. She isn't there. She's already dead."_

"Then I would want to die to be with her."Glass stabbed into Maura's left hand, and Maura blinked, gazing at it. Bleeding… how could she be bleeding? She looked at the mirror that was there, only to see no mirror.

"Get up girl, tell the bad bitch what you want from life." The old Maura whispered, nudging her with a heeled foot.

"Don't give in that easily! You can't let her win! You have a prince waiting outside of here to save you from the poisoned sleep!" Maura blushed, struggling to stand back up, trying to ignore the reference to her favorite story tale, sleeping beauty.

"You, cover your ears." Maura told her.

"But-"

"No buts; cover your ears. Tightly. And don't take your hands off until I tell you to." The child pouted, but did as she was told. Maura looked over to the older version of herself.

"Honey girl, I think the same things as you, and there is not a thing you could say to make this old woman blush."

"Figured I'd ask just in case."

"We were eye- fucked by Jane in a lesbian bar. There are no secrets." Maura grinned slightly, before glaring at a mirror.

"I want Jane." She hissed. It exploded, cracking down the center. "I would want to start off gentle. After all, Jane is always gentle with me. I want to feel her mouth on mine, our tongues brushing as we tease one another. I think that for a while, I might let her believe that she'd be the dominant one. She'd be wrong, of course. And then, after a little bit of these games, I think we'd go somewhere nice and private." Maura walked forward, glass crunching beneath her boots as she did so, the two other Maura's following her closely. The old woman chuckling to herself with the most ridiculous grin on her face that Maura could still only feel and not see. And the younger one, singing to herself with both hands pressed to her head. "Oh yes, I want Jane. I want to feel her writhe as I slide my hands down her body; as, ever so slowly, I strip the clothes from her body. I want to see her, to taste her. To make her mine. After all, she has been mine all this time." Maura nearly lost herself in the words, shaking her head as she relished the shattering around them. Something was screaming, but she didn't particularly care. "I believe that I would like to run my tongue down over her body slowly, make her cry out my name in that way she always does when frustrated. I would move down, as slowly as she would if this was me. And then I think I would enjoy to tease her just a bit with my tongue; I have been told I'm rather talented." Maura couldn't help but smirk at her own comment, turning to the left. "And then I would go back up, making some sassy comment about having gone down on Jane Rizzoli. At this point, I don't believe I could take it myself anymore, and would slide my hand in. I really wouldn't be able to control myself at this point, and so it would bring me great pleasure to throw her over the edge... And then when that has all happened, I want her to turn us over. I want to feel her, inside of me, doing the same things that I just did to her. And when we go to do it again? I think I could go for the use of those handcuffs she keeps in her upper- right hand drawer. Perhaps I will use them on her. Or maybe I'll let her dominate me, for just a little while." The amount of shattering around them was deafening, before Maura stood before only one mirror. One she had seen so many times before. "I want to see you." The white form materialized, and then changed. She raised an arm, aiming down the barrel of a gun she had never needed to call forth from her soul.

"Saucy, little one. I'm proud of you." The old woman whispered, raising her cup upwards in a salute. "I'm proud to be you. She stepped forward to the mirror, melding into it. Maura's hand lowered, slowly. What was going on?

"Can I uncover my ears now?" Maura nodded, and the little one hugged her tightly. "Ill see you in a little bit!" Was all she said, before she melted into the mirror herself. Maura approached the mirror, resting her hand against its cool surface. She saw a reflection there, one that did not look like her, but was her none the less.

"Will I ever see you again?" The persona shook her head. Maura had a feeling that would be the answer, and smiled sadly.

"Remember when we first met, and look at yourself now... you dont need me anymore." Maura considered many things to say, before she grinned.

"Hey. Who are you?" The Persona grinned, when the metal guard beneath her eyes receded, and she raised a hand to the plated mask, finally removing it. Maura smiled, she should have known.

"_Good bye, Maura Isles_." The doctor stepped back.

And pulled the trigger.

* * *

She was choking. With one hand, the doctor reached towards her throat, yanking the tubes in her arm. What the hell was going on? She had no idea, and she couldnt breath.

"Nat! Nat! Get over here!" A voice, a familiar voice cried out.

"Holy Hell and Heaven above!" Hands were on her body in a moment, the tube that had been jammed down her mouth removed as carefully as it could, her arm injected with something she didn't bother to analyze. Someone had clamped both her arms down to her sides so she didnt struggle. It didnt mean she wouldnt try though.

"Maur! Maura Isles, stop fighting me!" Jane? She stopped, turning her head. Jane looked like hell had descended upon her. Or worse. The doctor wasnt sure which.

"Alright this goes over your nose, please dont try to kill me, Maura. " She recognized that voice too, and shut her eyes, the breathing mask laid gently over. "Vitals are good. Gave us a scare, Maura."

"Nat."

"Right, I'll be over there, not listening." Jane paused a moment, before tightening her grip on Maura's hand.

"Damn it, Maura, I have so much to say that I have no idea where to begin. But I'll talk, and youll listen, because I almost died, and then you almost died trying to save me and holy Hell this is one run on sentence that is not making a whole lot of sense."

"I love you." She had worked her hand up, sliding the mask to the side in order to make the horribly cliche, gravelly words come out. They were long over due.

"Oh." Silence, where Maura nearly dropped the mask into place, stopped only by the detective's hand. Their first kiss was gentle, lasting only a few moments.

"I told her you were always gentle."

"Why is she talking! I hear talking!" Jane turned her head, fitting the mask back over the doctors face.

"You arent listening!" She smirked though, shaking her head. "Maur, is it over? Is it really over?" The doctor paused, before nodding her head slowly. It was over.

And that was not a lie.


	17. Epilogue

Maura Isles stayed in the car a moment longer, dreading this moment in time. Though she had, at one point, looked forward to this day, she really couldn't bear seeing all the grieving people. The families, and the friends.

"Hey, we don't have to do this, you know." Jane told her, the ME only shaking her head.

"Yes we do. Stop trying to make it better." The detective pursed her lips, but said nothing, instead offering her arm to the doctor. It was raining today, Maura noticed as she stepped out, reaching into the back seat for a bouquet of roses. Jane smiled at her slightly and she nodded. As they stepped into the throng of people, Jane paused.

"Hey, I forgot something. I'll be back in a moment." Maura nodded, walking up to the first casket. She had nothing that she wanted to be heard by the others here, nothing she hadn't admitted to Jane at some point. She stepped down the line, slowly, ever so slowly. She stopped at one, the seventh. She shouldn't have come here. She wasn't ready.

"I'm so sorry." She choked out, resting her hands on the edge of the flag that covered the officer's casket. "I... I'm sorry." She had nothing else to say, nothing else she could say.

"Hey, I'm sure he forgives you, down in that strip club Hell has been dropping fliers for recently." Jane whispered, running one hand over Maura's back. "Maur, I know. Its okay. It will all be okay."

"I know." The doctor finally managed to get out, rubbing tears away from her face. "Don't... Don't leave me." Jane slid her hand into Maura's, lowering her voice again.

"I would never go anywhere. Not even in the worst Nightmares." Maura nodded, silently continuing through as she spoke to the off person, turning away from the majority of conversations. After awhile, Jane's phone rang, and the detective looked at it. "Hey, let's go to Ma's for dinner. It'll be better than staying here, I promise." Maura nodded, following Jane to the car. She stepped in, tucking her legs up against the center console before looking up. Her eyes brimmed with tears, and she didn't even bother to wipe them away.

It was a rose, addressed to her.

"I figured, Kat needed something for her loss too. Is it alright?" Jane asked, and Maura didn't reply. Instead, she leaned over, brushing her lips against Jane's own. It was perfect.

_Everything_ was perfect.

* * *

_AN- Hah, only two. One at the beginning, and one at the end of an epilogue I never, ever planned for. But I like it so THERE. I hope you enjoyed this crossover, no matter how extremely messed up and screwed in the head it is... I enjoyed writing it. So tell your friends and share on facebook or whatever, just let it get out there where someone might actually read it. Thanks, its been one Hell of a ride!_

_Let all conditions be met,  
~SnapTobiume_


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